There's A Bad Moon on the Rise
by Sweet Little Mary Sue
Summary: It was supposed to be a routine weekend training exercise, an irritating, and, in some cases, extremely maddening, inconvenience, but no one had said anything about bloodshed and mayhem. Things that go bump in the night are one thing, but a camp of slaughtered soldiers is another, and Sargent Harry Wells and his "lads" soon find themselves on a brand-new mission...
1. Chapter One

There's A Bad Moon on the Rise

Sweet Little Mary Sue

Synopsis: It was supposed to be a routine weekend training exercise, an irritating, and, in some cases, extremely maddening, inconvenience, but no one had said anything about bloodshed and mayhem. Things that go bump in the night are one thing, but a camp of slaughtered soldiers is another, and Sargent Harry Wells and his "lads" soon find themselves on a brand-new mission, one that involves them doing their damnedest to survive until dawn.

Disclaimer: I own no part of the _Dog Soldiers_ universe. I am simply retelling the established story, with a few changes here and there, and placing my OC version of Private Cooper into the tale. I would also like to acknowledge that the title of this work of fanfiction came from the song, "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the title of each chapter herein will be taken from the lyrics as well.

Author's Note: I am not one who dabbles in the horror genre very often, but I was drawn to this story because, one, I have the big hots for Sean Pertwee, who is delightful as Sgt. Wells in the film, and two, because this movie was a lot of fun to watch, much more than I expected it to be. There are probably a few readers out there who disdain a story that is retelling the one that has already been told, in film, and if you are one of them, please turn back now. If you continue to read, I'm going to assume that you do so because you are _not_ offended by this sort of fanfic, though you should be aware of a few things before you continue. 1. Private Cooper is a woman in my version of the story, an OC of mine who never tried to enter the Special Forces unit. 2. Sgt. Wells is a bachelor in this version of the story. 3. I am going to stretch the boundaries of what is possible in this story, with no reservations at all, and I think that it's very acceptable for me to do so, given that this is a tale about werewolves, which means that we threw logic and reason out of the door before we even got started, didn't we? 4. I am an unabashed romantic, who loves a happy ending, so this work of fanfiction will not come to the same conclusion that the film did. I won't say that it will all be rainbows and lollipops in the end, but there will be the sort of resolution that a person like me would find pleasing, so those who yearn for angst…consider yourself warned.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: This story is rated **M** for violence, complete with gore, and strong language, as well as words and phrases that are as far from being politically correct as they can be. There will also be a fair amount of lemony goodness in this story as well, but not until the final chapter.

Chapter One

I See Trouble on the Way

Cooper's POV

The Highlands of Scotland were lovely from the air, but I had a bad feeling that they weren't going to be nearly as picturesque or majestic once we touched boots to the ground. My experience with the terrain was limited to the adventures that had unfolded in the magical pages of _Outlander_, but I was not Claire, and there would be no Jamie waiting for me once we jumped out of this chopper. I suppose that I ought to have been disappointed, after all, what woman wouldn't want to have a James Fraser of her very own, who would keep her warm at night? The reason might be, in my case, at least, because she already loved another, and he was already with her for the weekend…but it meant nothing, because she was just another one of his "lads".

I was not a woman in his eyes, I was just plain ol' Private Cooper, and I was no different from all of the other "lads" in the eyes of the Sarge. I suppose that I ought to have been grateful for the fact that I was treated the same as the rest, after all, wasn't that something to appreciate as a woman? I knew that it was important, and I was grateful for the fact that they treated me like I was one of them, though I doubted their sincerity at times, but I didn't want the Sarge to see me as a "lad", not when all that it took was one look at him to make me all shivery and quivery from head-to-toe.

"Here we go!" Sergeant Wells shouted, pulling me, with a start, back to the here and now, which had our chopper hovering over the ground, while the pilot waited for us to disperse. "I want you ladies to leave this craft in a manner that won't make me look like a bodgy commander, alright? Put your boots on the ground and secure the landing zone on the count of three…two…one…and go!"

The Sarge was the first one out of the chopper, which was to be expected. "Move it, ladies!" he shouted, hurrying us along. "Put some speed into it, if you please!"

One by one, we jumped out and hit the ground running, except for Joe, who seemed content to linger a little longer than he ought to. "Now, Joe!" the Sarge bellowed, "Get your ass out of there and act like a damned soldier!"

"I won't miss the footy for this load of shite, Sarge!" Joe replied, planting the cheeks of his backside more firmly against the seat. "It's bone…you know it is…and I won't do it!"

Sarge rolled his eyes and said something that I missed, due to the droning blades of the chopper. He reached inside and grabbed hold of Joe, who stupidly dug in his heels and repeated part of his spiel, only to be unceremoniously dragged out of the craft and tossed to the ground. I don't suppose that it occurred to him that he could have spared himself that particular indignity by doing as he was told the first time around…or maybe he just didn't care. Either way, I felt that he was a dumbass, to be making so much fuss over missing a damned game, but I was just a girl, wasn't I, so what the hell did I know?

We rushed down the hillside, to the forest beyond, and I marveled at the fact that none of our party tripped over their feet while doing so, at the same moment that I gave thanks that _I_ didn't. If there was one thing that would make the men remember that I possessed a vagina, it was making a mistake, and I was in no mood for them to look at me in _that_ way. It had been a good, long while since I'd given them any reason to do so, and that was a record that I intended to keep intact as long as I possibly could.

We made it to the trees and took cover, hiding from pursuers who weren't there and readying ourselves for the arrival of combatants who'd never come our way, while the chopper turned 'round and left us behind. "Alright, they're up," the Sarge said, which some, that being Joe, took as a cue to take off their headgear and relax just a bit, even though they ought to have known better.

"Cooper!" Sarge shouted, locking his eyes onto mine. "Get me a position and point of reference ASAP. I want to be on the move in three minutes, no more, though less would be great, if you can manage it."

"Right away, Sarge," I replied, wondering, for what had to have been the hundredth time, at the very least, in all of my time with these guys, why in hell we bothered with all of the initial covertness, if everyone was just going to communicate by yelling at one another.

"Spoon, Terry, you've got stag," the Sarge continued, giving me one last glance before he turned his attention elsewhere, as if he'd heard the hint of sarcasm in my tone that I was certain I'd concealed. "Aw, Joe, would you get up off your fat ass and at least _pretend_ to be a soldier? For fuck's sake, man, sitting around sulking like a bitty baby who didn't get a new toy at the shop is a damned good way for you to get yourself…not to mention the rest of us…killed!"

Joe rose off of his "fat ass" just long enough to shift his seat, and then plopped back down, still sulking, while a couple of jets passed by overhead. "Alright lads, let's have a time sync," the Sarge continued, paying no mind at all to "bitty baby" Joe. We all looked down and readied our watches. "I read 07:30 in three…two…one…check."

"Shit," Spoon muttered, after staring at his bare left wrist that whole while without saying a word. "I don't believe this."

"What's the bother now, Witherspoon?" Sarge asked, in a tone that implied that he _did_ believe this, which was to be expected, because Spoon generally screwed up in one way or another when we got together for these little exercises.

"I went off and left my watch back at the barracks, Sarge," Spoon replied.

The Sarge's eyes went skyward once more as he shook his head disgustedly. "You might want to stop and take a bloody breather every now and then, son, if for no other reason than to prolong your life…as well as our misery."

"That was brilliant, Spoon," Bruce snickered, "smashing, in fact, you tosser."

The Sarge smiled broadly, joined by several of the "lads", yours truly amongst them. And then, Joe, the whiny prat, decided that this was the perfect moment to let off some of the steam that he'd been filled with ever since he'd found out that he was destined to miss the footy to end all footies.

"You took the words right out of my mouth….," he began, only to be cutoff, midsentence, by Spoon, who was in no mood to take any guff off of a sulky git like Joe.

"It won't be words that you'll be taking out of your mouth in you keep running off at the gob," Spoon warned, "because you'll be too busy choking on my boot, Joe, you great whinging twat!"

"Eh, sod off….," Joe muttered, resuming his pout in an instant.

"What's eating you now, Joe?" the Sarge asked, as if he didn't already know.

"Aw, c'mon, Sarge…you know that this bullshit is totally bone!" Joe shouted. "Tonight's game is the most important one of my life, and I'm stuck here, in the asscrack of nowhere, without so much as a six-pack or a telly!"

There went another eye roll from the Sarge, followed by a quick scratch to his nose which might have been meant to convey disinterest or boredom…either way, I was just thankful that he didn't follow it with a finger up his nostril to root about for nuggets.

"Yeah, well, that's the army, innit it?" Bruce asked, one of those rhetorical questions that served no other purpose than to momentarily fill what could have been an awkward half second of silence before Joe resumed his tantrum.

"It's England versus Germany, guys!" he shouted, clearly bewildered by our lack of outrage. "It's all-out footy war, the game of the fecking century….!"

"Yeah, it's a tragedy, Joe," the Sarge said, "but it don't hold a candle to what we got going on right now, does it?"

"Aw, come off it, Sarge!" Joe fumed. "This is just a meaningless bit of cack, innit? It's just another stupid exercise, something that could hardly be called life or death, eh?"

"Oh, I don't know about that, Joe," Spoon said, in a tone that conveyed boredom, as well as irritation. "You're coming close to killing me with all of your fucking whining, aren't you?"

"If you'd paid one whit of attention at the briefing, Kirkley, you'd know who it is that we're up against in this 'meaningless' and 'stupid' _exercise_," the Sarge said, in that tone that meant that he was swiftly reaching the end of his fuse, the sound of which made me look up from my work and give him a quick glance. That was all that it took for me to see that Joe was treading on shaky and dangerous ground. Apparently he was a mite bit thicker than I'd normally believed, because he soldiered on with his mouthing as if he wasn't within seconds of a thorough bollocking, and I was quick to lower my eyes back to the task at hand, before the Sarge caught me gawking.

"And who's that?" Joe asked stupidly, drawing several disbelieving looks from the other lads, who clearly believed that he had lost what little mind he possessed.

"Special Forces, you fat plunker!" Bruce growled, looking at Joe in a manner that conveyed the impression that he was surveying the stupidest creature that had ever sulked his way around God's green Earth.

That drew a chuckle from Sarge and his lads…well; all of his lads save for Joe, that is.

"Yeah, well, I say bollocks to them….," Joe replied, indicating, with his tone, that his words were the opening to yet another spiel, but the Sarge cut him off before he could get started.

"Alright, lads, give me your ears," he began, "I'll be sure to make this swift and straight to the point. It might come as a big, fucking surprise to you lot, but there's nothing that I want to do more than to go home, jump into my nice, comfy bed, and get thoroughly rat-arsed while I watch the footy. Granted, I'd prefer to do so with a soft, warm woman, but….."

"But it's been a good, long while since you've scored, eh, Sarge?" Terry asked, wearing a big, shit-eating grin.

"But you might find yourself in the penalty box straightaway, for delay of game while you struggle to ready your equipment, eh, Sarge?" Spoon asked, taking a cue, followed by the reins, from Terry.

Most of the lads had a good laugh at the Sarge's expense, and I was thankful that they were occupied elsewhere, in spite of the fact that he was the butt of their jokes, because I didn't want them to see that I was blushing. I couldn't help but think that I would love to be the soft, warm woman sharing his bed with him. I couldn't help but fantasize about his hunger, after what had been a long dry spell for him…not to mention me. I couldn't help but imagine his "equipment", which I was certain would be ready, willing and able, once the moment arrived, not to mention impressive, and the resulting images made me red in the face…and really, _really_ shivery and quivery all over.

"Can it, ladies," the Sarge said, refusing to rise to the bait and shifting into boss man mode, which was certain to make everyone toe the line. "Right now, as far as any of us know, we're 50k behind enemy lines. Therefore, if we do happen to make contact, I will expect nothing less than complete and thoroughly superfluous carnage from you lot. Yes, we're armed with nothing more than blanks, but that doesn't mean that we ought to go in there with pretty thoughts in our heads, does it lads? I expect you to hold your own, you establish yourself as a badassed motherfucker and kick their teeth down their throat…because if you don't, Joe me lad, they will be dining on your bollocks come the morning, alright, Sunshine?"

"Will they be having them hardboiled or fried, Sarge?" Bruce asked, casting a humorous glance at Joe, who was, once more, pouting like a tit.

"Neither," Sarge said definitely, as if he had the whole thing planned out. "They'll want them scrambled, won't they?"

He moved toward Spoon, unfastening his watch, "Here you are, Spoonie," he said, handing him his timepiece.

"Oh, nice one, Sarge," Spoon replied, taking the offering and securing it on his wrist.

"Yeah, well, while it looks nice and new and all shiny-like, it isn't worth shit…and I'll be wanting it back once we get home, so don't go falling in love with it."

"Thanks again, Sarge, but how are you going to get by?"

"I'll just have to make do with counting, won't I?"

I was following the conversation carefully with my ears, while my eyes moved over the map that I held in my hands. I heard the Sarge's footsteps as he moved behind me, and my breath caught, for the just a moment, as he sat beside me. I could smell his soap, a familiar and wonderfully masculine scent, underscored by the lingering odor of cigarette smoke, which wasn't quite as pleasing, aside from the fact that it was a part of him.

"Alright, Cooper, you've had _more_ than three minutes to work, not that it was your fault, so I'm thinking that you had to have come up with something by now…haven't you?"

I tried not to look into his eyes, because I was bound to blush if I did so, and made do with breaking my pencil in half instead, to distract him from anything that might show itself on my face.

"We're sitting right here," I said, gesturing at the map with one half of the pencil. "And here's the front line," I said, touching another spot, "and AWAK gave us the intel that enemy positions are here…here…and here, with widespread patrols between each of the trenches. My opinion, if you want it, Sir, is that they'll have the whole area drawn up tighter than an…um…Eskimo's nutsack…Sir."

His lips curled into a smile, which momentarily distracted me and threw me off-track, but thankfully I found my way back fairly quickly. "That being said, we've still got one viable option," I continued, pointing, once more, to the map, and holding my breath when he bent his head close to mine. "There's a river there, one that crosses the line through a gorge that's about thirty or forty foot deep. Now, it's certain to have a patrol on it, but if we wait until night, tread with care, and don't mind dipping our boots in the water, I think that we'll make it just fine."

The Sarge smiled at me, and then noticed my compass, the one that I'd adorned with a rabbit's foot. "What all this about, eh, Cooper?" he asked.

I risked a glance at his face and then upped the ante with a smile…which he answered, just as I'd hoped he would. "Well, Sir, with my luck, I reckon that I can use all of the help that I can get."

His eyes grew kind as they continued to hold onto mine. "Listen, Cooper, I know that you think that you're still something of an outsider with this lot, but you're wrong. These lads know that you're a good soldier, a damned fine soldier, and I know it as well. We trust you with our lives, each and every last one of us, and God knows that we'd be a hell of a lot worse off without you."

"Are you certain that you're not bothered by the fact that you ended up leading a cunt squad, Sarge?" I asked, purposefully using the cute little nickname that some asshole had given to the units that contained women. I suppose that I might have showed more sense by resisting the urge to use that term, but it was out there, and it had to be acknowledged, didn't it?

"That's a load of bollocks, and you damned well know it," the Sarge said softly, but with a warning tone that told me that I was a hairbreadth away from having my ass chewed. "Anyone who says that is a twat, and toffee-nosed to boot, and you damned well know it too. There's not a lad here who'd stand for that sort of talk and I'd personally, and happily, place my boot into the ass of any tosser who had the nerve to even _hint_ that we think of you that way."

He placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, which was an action that might have been taken as fraternal in nature, had he not followed it with a pat of said hand. It was obvious that he hadn't meant to do that, because he blushed afterward, but I was glad of it. I suppose that there were some who'd say that his actions were improper, but I'd needed his touch, and his words, to reassure me, once more, that I was really and truly one of the "lads"…..which, when I thought about it, was still kind of depressing.

"Alright, ladies," he said, rising to his feet with the oddest look on his face. "Pack up all of your miseries, put whatever brains you have in drive and let's get traveling. Spoonie, you're on point…Terry and Joe, you're my tail-end Charlies, right?"

Everyone moved into position and I ended up standing next to Joe's helmet, which he'd carelessly discarded and just remembered. "Oi, Cooper, hand that here, will you?" he called. I glanced up at him and smiled, then kicked his headgear in his direction, even though I knew he'd planned on me toting it to him instead.

"Oh, you fucking twater!" he bellowed, catching the helmet and placing it on his head. "I can't believe that I'm missing the footy for this load of shit!"

The Sarge had given Joe a blistering look when he'd called me a twater, but he didn't say a word until the whining commenced. "Joe, you great lardy lump, I swear before holy God that you will either shut your fucking gob, or I will shut it for you. Now move your ass into line and stop carrying-on like a whinging bone-idle git, right?"

Joe made a face and started to say something that would undoubtedly earn him a thumping, and then thought better of it. "I didn't say a word otherwise, did I Sarge?" he asked, shooting me a thoroughly nasty look as he waited for me to take my place ahead of him.

Oh, yeah, I was definitely one of the lads…so why was the Sarge so keen to take up for me, even if he did so in secret?


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Looks like we're In for Nasty Weather

Wells' POV

"Well, where in the hell are we now?"

Damned Joe, pissing and moaning, pissing and moaning, over and over again, until I wanted to plant my boot up his ass and turn it sideways. I swear that I spent most of my time acting like a mum to this lot, and that meant that I loved them with every last bit of my heart…but there were also times when I wanted to give them a good smack. I had been doing this a long time, I was a damned good sergeant too, a damned good _sergeant_, and as such I shouldn't have been having to playact as a second mum to a bunch of full-grown men.

You'll notice that I didn't mention my sole full-grown woman in that complaint, and why, you might ask, is that? Well, that's because I never had to worry about Cooper acting like a plank, did I? I never felt the urge to smack the back of her head for acting like an idiot…though there had been a time or two that I would have liked to have given her a smack on the ass, but not because she was acting like a divvy. She didn't depend on me to be her substitute mummy and she could be counted on to do her job. All in all, she was one of my best and I loved her just as much as I loved my lads…so why in hell did I have to get a rod-on whenever she was close by?

Alright, maybe I was overstating things just a bit…but not by much. It bothered me, to have that reaction to her, because I wasn't one of those skeevy commanders who went around trying to cop a feel and play grab-ass with the women that I'd been given to lead. I didn't have any use for those sorts, they tended to rank amongst those who went around saying things like "cunt squad", so why couldn't I remember my convictions whenever Cooper was near? Why couldn't she have been sexless to me, or obnoxious or ugly? Why in hell did she have to be so thoroughly feminine? Why did she have to have such a sweet smile…and why in hell did she have to be so damned easy on the eyes?

"This is stupid," Joe muttered, continuing to whinge about, even though it was crystal-clear that no one was paying him one whit of attention. I suppose that wasn't the point of his complaining, was it? It was obvious that we were somewhere in the woolies of the Scottish highlands, he knew that just as well as we did, so there was no reason for him to be asking for a location report…other than to be a pain in our collective bollocks. Thankfully, no one was inclined to answer him, they, like I, were happy to ignore him, and he soon grew tired of receiving no response and shut his gob.

We walked a good part of the day away in silence, taking in the scenery and sticking to the course that Cooper had chosen, then stopped, midday, for a break and a bite to eat…as well as a piss, which was done with the lads on the left, and our lone lady on the right. Knowing Cooper, she wouldn't have batted an eye at us whipping out our cocks in front of her to take a leak. Undoubtedly, she would have squatted in front of us without a word, but there was no way in hell that I was going to give her an eyeful of my willie…and I didn't even want to think about how I might have reacted if I'd caught a glimpse of her…yeah…that would have been embarrassing, to say the very least.

We reconvened by the trees after we'd emptied our bladders and took out tins of this and bags of that to sate our hunger a bit. We ate in silence for several moments, aside from those who'd clearly been raised with no table manners at all, and then, as was par for the course, Cooper grew tired of the lack of conversation. I don't know why she always wanted to include talking with eating, it seemed to me that she was only encouraging the lads to put their lack of manners on display a little more clearly, but I let her do as she pleased, simply because I enjoyed the sound of her voice.

"I heard a really great story about this place….," she began, only to be interrupted by, whom else, but Joe.

"You what?" he asked. "You don't even know where we are for sure…do you?"

"I've heard that people go missing out here," she continued, pretending that Joe hadn't spoken at all. "As a matter of fact, it happens all of the time….."

"Aw, that's a load of bollocks, Cooper," Spoon said, resting his ass on his pack.

"No, it's true," she insisted, "just last month a couple went missing while they were hiking out this way. They set up their camp, normal as you please, but something went wrong during the night. A rescue team found what was left of their campsite a few days later, the tent was in shreds and everything was covered in blood. The newspapers had a theory about them being taken by a monster of some sort, but the local folk said that it was just some loony who'd escaped from the nearest nuthouse. Either way, they've found nothing, not the victims, or the one responsible for all of the bloodshed, so no one really knows what happened to them. All that anyone does know for certain is that more and more people come out this way with every year that passes, and every now and then, they don't make it back. They just vanish without a trace…and are never seen again."

Cooper had a way with words, and she was one hell of a good storyteller. I turned around to look at her, sitting above me, with her back pressed against a tree, and felt a shiver take hold of me, deep down in my belly, when she winked at me and smiled.

"Eh, what a load of cack," I told her, even though I would have rather returned both the wink and the smile. The way that I responded to her was dangerous. What if I forgot myself? What if I went ahead and did what I wanted? What would the lads think? What would _she_ think? I knew that I couldn't let myself make that mistake. She needed to be the same as the others, and there was no better way for me to screw that up for her than by reminding the others that she was, indeed, a woman. She deserved better than that…she deserved better than me.

* * *

><p>We continued our trek, whistling a fair rendition of The Piranhas cover of "Tom Hark". I suppose that I ought to have told the lads to keep things a little quieter, so as not to draw any attention to ourselves, but I didn't, because I'd always enjoyed having a bit of a tune to march to. That being said, I just couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched, stalked almost, but if that was the case, what good would it do to keep quiet? If someone truly was following us, they would be able to do so whether we made any noise or not, wouldn't they?<p>

Time went by fairly quickly, and before I knew it night had fallen and it was time to set up camp. We got everything settled, each of us taking on a task, and by the time that we were ready to settle down we had a nice fire roaring. It might have been a regular family campout, had it not been for the fact that the dad of the group had a lot of sons who were around the same age, along with one woman who'd be the perfect fit as the mum…aside from the fact that she was too young for the dad, and one of those who was in his charge.

Speaking of Cooper, she soon grew weary of the silence that naturally seemed to take hold of us men while we were digging into tins and packets, and decided to fill the void with a little conversation. I expected another story, I was fairly certain that the lads did as well, but she went the route of the Q & A instead, which was bound to be much worse.

"What scares you the most, Bruce?" she began, landing upon a subject that might prove dangerous, given that there was no man in existence, at least none that I was aware of, that wanted to admit that he had ever, or would ever, be afraid of _anything_ to a woman.

"The incessant need of man to destroy himself in every plausible way," Campbell replied, without hesitation.

"What a load of bollocks," Spoon said, "you're just taking the piss, Bruce."

"Do you really think so?" Bruce asked with a smile, taking a quick swig from his cup of…God, I hoped that was coffee or tea, or, at the very worst, water.

"Well, then, what about you, Spoon?" Cooper asked.

"That's easy," he replied, "hands down, without a doubt…castration."

Campbell laughed, all of the other lads, yours truly included, nodded and winced. Granted, our balls got us in more trouble than we could manage at times, but the thought of going through life without them was sobering, to say the very least. I think that I'd rather lose my sight _and_ my hearing than to go without my bollocks, and I was willing to wager that most, if not all of the other lads would agree with me.

"I can imagine," Cooper murmured, glancing at the ground, and, if I wasn't mistaken, blushing just a bit before she moved on. "What about you, Joe?"

Well, this ought to be a good one. Joe pissed and moaned more than an old woman, but I imagined that he'd be reluctant to admit that he was afraid of anything. I reckoned that Cooper would have been better off asking him what made him mad. That was a query that would have had numerous replies, most of them about missing the damned footy, and we all would have ended the night with burst eardrums…provided, of course, that we didn't kill him first.

"There's only one thing that puts the fear in me," he said, thoroughly shocking me. "And that's a penalty shoot-out."

Hmm…that was a little lackluster. "I should have known," Cooper told him, rolling her eyes before she moved on. "What scares you, Terry?"

"That's an easy one," he said with a smirk. "Nothing's worse than watching a penalty shoot-out on the telly…with Joe."

Everyone, save for Joe, had a good chuckle over that one, and then, once the noise had died down again, I saw Bruce glance at Cooper across the campfire. "What about you, Cooper?" he asked. "What scares you?"

I was a little pissed that he'd asked her that, because it ought to have been my turn to answer her, but I didn't let my displeasure be seen. I was a little curious myself, to know what gave her the willies. It would be one more part of the puzzle that was her, and I could store the information away in the spot where I kept all of what I knew of her…I just hoped that she didn't name _me_ as her greatest fear.

"I hate spiders," she said with a shiver, and I groaned as quietly as I could, knowing that she'd just set herself up to discover an arachnid or two in her sleeping bag. "And bullies, to name a couple of things, and that's all I'm going to say…though, I suppose I should mention bullying spiders as well, huh?"

Everyone had a laugh, which was to be expected, but I wondered how much of what she'd said was the truth. I mean, everyone hated spiders, didn't they? But what had she meant about bullies? Had she been the target of them in her past, as most of us had from time to time, or was she referring to those who might still be intimidating her? Was that bit about the "cunt squad" personal, and, if so, who was the tosser responsible, and did he have friends to help him in his quest?

"Well, since we're on the subject, I'd like to know what scares the Sarge," Terry said. "What gives you the willies, eh?"

"You've got to be joking," Spoon said, talking around the after dinner fag that was standard for me and most of my lads. "There's nothing and no one that scares the Sarge."

Oh, yeah, that was me, wasn't it? I had a hide that was ten times thicker than an elephants, accompanied by a spine composed of steel and balls that were pure brass. What a joke that was. If the truth were to be known, I couldn't even begin to count all of the times I'd been out of my wits with fright during my tenure with the Army, but I couldn't let it show. My lads were always counting on me to lead them, _fearlessly_, into whatever laid ahead…and that's what I did…because I'd always been one hell of a good poker player, hadn't I?

"Well, I wouldn't say that," I murmured, staring across the way, into the fire. "The thought of never laying eyes on my Mum again scares me shitless, lads. There's that thought, and there's also those things that make your skin tingle and crawl, that make the tiny hairs on your neck stand up and quiver about….."

"I reckon you're talking about Spoon," Joe said, interrupting me with a little quip that was unlikely to put the lads, Spoonie in particular, in a jovial mood.

"Eh, jog on, you whiny cunt."

Yep…definitely Spoon was definitely not feeling jovial. "No, I'll tell you, there's one thing that happened to me, one thing that I remember, that'll haunt me until the day I die."

I saw, from the corner of my eye, that Cooper had turned toward me and was watching me closely. I allowed myself a moment to take in the sight of her, to appreciate it, if you will, before I continued with my tale. The story that I meant to tell was an ugly one, to be sure, and it would help, to take an instant to enjoy her beauty, even though I was careful to do so as secretively as I could manage, lest the lads take notice.

"It was back in '91, right before my unit was set to fly out to Kuwait to take out the last bit of the resistance," I continued, remembering myself with a lot less lines on my face and a lot more hair on my head. "Me and this young bloke called Eddie Oswald made up our minds to go get a tattoo to remember our first trip into the desert….."

"Yeah, I remember Eddie," Bruce said, "He was a stocky fellow, right, a real hard case, with a nose that had been broken more than once and that cocked-up eye, right?"

"Too right," I said, snuffing my cigarette and letting loose with a quiet chuckle. "He was a looker, our Eddie was, had to fight off the girls with a stick."

We all had a laugh then, at poor Eddie Oswald's expense, but that was to be expected from those on our walk of life. It wasn't cruelty or mockery that made us laugh. We weren't taking the piss to be disrespectful to Eddie. We did it because when given the choice between laughing or crying, most blokes will have a chuckle, and who can blame them, right?

"Well, anyway, me and Eddie had a few drinks…we got ourselves rat-arsed, you might say…and then we made our way to the tattoo parlor. I chose a desert rat for my design…as pissed as I was it was a wonder that I didn't end up with ol' Iron Maggie in a string bikini…but Eddie wanted something a bit more meaningful. It may come as a surprise to you lot, but Eddie was a believer, and he told me that his soul belonged to the Almighty, but his flesh was corrupted, it was beyond redemption, and he reckoned that the duty to save his skin would have to fall on Satan's shoulders…so he got this huge laughing devil tattoo, right on his arse."

Everyone had a giggle about that, yours truly intended…though I noticed that Cooper looked to be blushing again. "Well, nearly a week later we were sweeping the Iraqi border and Eddie, the poor fucking bastard, triggered an antitank mine. We all saw it happen. Ol' Eddie was out front, and suddenly a great blinding flash of light lit the sky, a massive _cracking_ sound filled the air, and by the time we'd hauled our asses up off the deck, Eddie was…well, he was gone, leaving bits and pieces of himself behind. All that there was left was a great red circle, a hundred meters 'round, that was all that was left to show of him, of his life, that and a few pieces of who he'd been, and not a damned thing more."

Ah, there it was…the anger. I usually kept that tucked away, where it wouldn't hurt me or anyone else, but who could tell a story like that without feeling what you'd felt at that moment?

"That sort of thing tends to put your whole life into perspective," I continued, "you really have a chance to understand what matters most, when you find yourself with a shovel in one hand and a bin bag in the other, scooping up the scraps of what used to be your mate…anyway, what really rattled us that day was the moments when we'd come across a bit of Eddie that we'd recognize. I found a little chunk of his earlobe, and his nose…a piece of toe…one of his teeth…but what scared me most was when left-hand Charlie found the bit that had Eddie's tattoo on it. It was mad, you know, everything else was burnt to a fucking crisp or covered in crimson, it was all mushed up and chucked about, but that bit was clean and clear. It was ol' Scratch himself, just as pretty as you please, having a good, long laugh at us. So I guess that you could say that Eddie Oswald was right about one thing, that Satan managed to save his skin…he just didn't save _all_ of it…or, you could say that poor Eddie was just one more unlucky bastard, in a long line of many. Either way, it scared the bejesus out of me, and it taught me to keep to keep my mind open, lads, because you never know what might happen, right?"

Damn, the atmosphere around the fire had turned almost funereal in tone, as was proper, I suppose. "Anyway, lads," I said, breaking through the shocked silence and raising my mug in a toast. "This one's for Eddie Oswald."

"To Eddie," Spoon echoed, raising his cup, along with all of the others and paying his respects with a swig. The moments that followed were uncomfortably quiet, and I regretted telling the boys my story, but then Spoon, God bless his irreverent soul, broke through the discomfort in the best possible way.

"So, anyway, this fellow walks into a pub, with a pooch under his arm. He puts the pup on the bar, then goes to find a seat, and leaves the barkeep wondering, 'what in the hell is going on here, eh?' He looks at the dog, hoping, I suppose for an explanation, God knows why, and to his surprise, the dog turns on….."

All of the sudden, a cow fell into the camp, it fell out of the fucking sky, as if it had a right to do so and landed _smack_ on the campfire. That was enough to throw everyone into a tizzy, which, needless to say, left me hanging where that joke was concerned, and that was a real shame too, because it had sounded pretty damned promising to me.


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

I See Bad Times Today

Cooper's POV

It seemed a little idiotic, given the hysteria that the camp was in, but for some reason I couldn't help but think of that line from "Hey Diddle Diddle" as I stared at the mess that had landed smack-dab in the middle of our fire. Now, I couldn't say with any certainty whether or not this cow had been in the process of jumping over the moon when she went _splat_, but it seemed unlikely that she had. It was pigs that were supposed to fly in those rare moments when Hell was freezing over, not cows, so how had this furry monstrosity come to such a gruesome end?

"Aw, it's a fucking cow!" someone needlessly shouted as blood spattered every which way. Cups were flying this way and that, spilling coffee and tea, and I watched, in shocked bemusement, as a few of my fellows began to scramble up the side of the ravine, sending dirt and rocks down to add to what was already soaring through the air. I think that it was safe to say that all hell broke loose in a matter of seconds, and then Terry, God bless his timid heart, unleashed a volley from his weapon…a volley of absolutely nothing, given that it was armed with blanks.

"Ceasefire, Terry, you great fucking git!" the Sarge shouted. "Quit your shooting, for chrissakes!"

Spoon was rolling on the ground, pointing at Terry, who had received a fair spattering of blood on his face when the cow exploded, and laughing his damned fool head off. I suppose that it was good that someone could find something to have a chuckle about amidst all of this bedlam, but I couldn't see what was so funny. Maybe I would be able to do so later, after everything had calmed down, but at that moment Spoon's braying was simply annoying, and I had a good mind to plant my boot in his ass if he didn't shut up pretty damned quick.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing, Terry?" Joe asked disgustedly. "You've no rounds in that weapon, you daft wanker, only blanks."

"Are you alright, lads?" Sarge asked, looking 'round the camp, to ascertain that we were all alive and well after our close call. "Is everyone okay?"

"Hell no, I'm not okay," Spoon said. "I think I just shit my pants, Sarge."

Ugh…I hoped that he was speaking metaphorically, though, if he wasn't, he'd probably made the mess in his underwear when he was rolling on the ground, laughing like he'd lost his damned mind. If that was the case, he deserved to be covered in shit, but we'd be punished as well, because we'd have to smell him, wouldn't we?

I don't know what made me kneel down next to what remained of the cow. God knows that I had no intention of praying for the departed soul of a creature that had a tendency to urinate _and_ defecate while it was eating, yet there I was, on my knees just the same.

"Is it dead, Coop?" Terry asked, in a tone that told me that he was still thoroughly rattled, and therefore it would be unkind of me to take the piss out of him for asking such a stupid question.

"Most definitely," I said, running my eyes over the bloody and gory mess that had once went _moo_.

"It's in one hell of a state, innit?" Campbell muttered, kneeling down beside me. "What could have done that…I mean, what could have, other than the damned drop?"

"Yeah, just look at the state that it's in, Terry," one of the lads said, words that were followed by the raucous laughter of most of the others. Poor Terry was busy cleaning the mess off of his face, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd genuinely shit his pants, so, needless to say, he didn't think that it was all that funny.

"Some of these injuries didn't occur in the fall," I said, pointing at the wounds that had just caught my attention. "Those look like teeth marks to me."

"Just what is it that you're saying, Coop?" Terry asked shakily, moving back and forth, from one foot to the other, like someone who needed to take a leak. I might have had to offer a sarcastic response to that question, given that it came so soon after his first idiotic query, but whatever I'd been on the verge of saying was lost as the Sarge leaned over me.

"She's saying that the damned thing was the victim of natural causes, innit?" he replied, hovering over me for just a moment, before he moved away. It would have been the easiest thing in the world; to move back against him and feel him pressed against me, but what excuse could I have possibly offered for doing so?

"We should probably report this," Terry said, and I choked back a laugh, imagining the sort of response we'd receive, if we were to do so. "Shouldn't we, Sarge?"

"Too right, Terry," Joe replied, "get on the radio, Bruce….."

"Like hell," the Sarge interrupted, before the hysteria could spread any further. "I'm not about to break radio silence, just because you girls got spooked by a fucking cow! We have this position and we're going to hold on to it, we're going to keep it secure 'til morning, and then we will have another look at the situation, won't we?"

No one responded, but I was fairly certain that it wasn't necessary, not to mention wise, for anyone to do so, given that his query had obviously been rhetorical in nature. "Too right," he replied, answering in our stead. "Now then, lads, we need to set up watch for the night. We'll do it with two on and four off, Bruce and Spoon on first. Cooper and I will take over at 0100 hours. And Terry, since you don't seem to have anything better to do, why don't you see to sorting your kit out, alright? The rest of you lot know what needs to be done, so get to it, and then get a little shuteye. Pull yourselves together, for chrissakes; this isn't a bloody girlguiding jamboree, is it?"

The Sarge was obviously in a pisser of a mood, and as such I ought to have been dreading the prospect of keeping watch with him. That being said, I wasn't dreading it, I was pleased, I was happy…to be perfectly honest, I was downright giddy, and the only thing that I could think about was how on earth I was going to get to sleep, knowing that I'd have him all to myself for two whole hours.

* * *

><p>"Wakey-wakey, sunshine," someone whispered in my ear, pulling me from a marvelous dream that involved a very naked Sarge doing the most wonderful and sinful things to my equally naked body. "It's our turn to stand watch, Cooper."<p>

"Mm-hmm," I moaned sleepily, realizing too late that I'd just given a breathy voice to the feelings that were racing through my body and pulsating between my thighs. "Er…that is…yes, Sir…right away, Sarge."

His face was so close to mine that I could have inclined my head just a wee bit and pressed a kiss to his lips, if I'd dared…but I didn't, so I made do with staring into his eyes instead. For just a moment I was certain that I saw something in his gaze, an awareness, you might say, of each and every thing that I was feeling, as well as something that I would have sworn was a mirror of my own emotions, but then it was gone, and I was sure that I'd imagined it.

He cleared his throat and quickly rose to his feet as Campbell and Spoon stumbled to their bedrolls for a few hours of sleep. It was one in the morning and the Sarge and I would keep watch until three, when Joe and Terry would take over, and keep a, hopefully, sharp eye out until five, when it was time for everyone to rise and shine, whether they wanted to or not. I couldn't believe that I'd managed to fall asleep at all. I would have thought that I would be too keyed up to do so, but I had just the same, which meant that I was scrambling to keep up with the Sarge as he made his way to the edge of the camp.

"Blimey, it's cold out, innit?" he asked, as he staked the spot which would look out of the camp, which left me with the watch facing in. It was the least dangerous spot for me to take, given that a threat would have to pass over four bodies, as well as the fire, to get to us, and I suspected that he'd given it to me on purpose. I suppose that I could have made a bid for the other side, but I had a feeling that he was in no mood to hear any arguments, and I didn't want to waste any time bickering back-and-forth with him.

"Witch's titty cold, Sarge," I agreed, hesitating for just a moment before I settled my back against his. "But you're nice and warm….."

My voice trailed away as it dawned on me what I'd just said. Oh, hell…was that something that two blokes would say to one another? Of course it wasn't! I could just imagine what would happen if Terry were to say something like that to Joe, or Campbell to Spoon. They would, at the very least, be bollocked until they didn't dare open their mouth again, and, if I knew them as well as I thought I did, they'd undoubtedly receive a shove, and possibly a punch, for getting a little too friendly…..

"Erm…I'm glad to hear it, Cooper," the Sarge murmured. "I wouldn't want you to catch cold."

The next five minutes passed by in awkward silence. Three hundred seconds of uncomfortable quietness, I know, because I counted, and then I heard the Sarge clear his throat as he pressed his back more firmly against mine. I was embarrassed, self-conscious and wishing that there was a hole that I could dive into by that time, but I responded to him anyway, wriggling against him just a bit, before it dawned on me that my doing so might be misconstrued as well.

"Well, I guess that means that you're still awake back there, doesn't it?" he said softly, in a tone that I would have sworn was filled with a smile. "I was beginning to think that you might have nodded off on me, Cooper."

"You ought to know better than that," I replied, unconsciously leaning back, to rest my head against his neck. "I would never leave you all by yourself, would I, Sarge?"

I heard him take a deep breath and blushed when it occurred to me where my head was resting. I moved away from him as quickly as I could manage without causing either one of us any further embarrassment, and firmly settled my gaze on the camp, in the hope that a reminder of my duties might put my mind back on the right track, but it didn't help me one damned bit. Granted, I was looking at a campfire, and four sleeping men, but all that I could think about was the man who was sitting behind me…and how wonderfully rough his fingertips were, as they'd traced along the softness of my inner thighs, and the way that he'd chuckled, deep in his throat, as I'd arched my back and gasped his name…..

"No, you wouldn't, Cooper," he murmured, bringing me out of my deliciously naughty reveries with a start. "I've never even entertained the notion that you wouldn't be there when I needed you. I've never had to doubt you, you've never given me any reason to, and I know that I can trust you with my life…I _do_ trust you with my life."

He could have told me that I was the most beautiful woman that he'd ever laid his eyes on, and I wouldn't have been happier than I was at that moment. "And I trust you with mine, Sarge," I murmured, wishing that I could turn to him, but I didn't dare. I knew that I was flirting with him, but I couldn't say with any certainty that he was returning the favor, and how embarrassing would that be, if I was to make my move, only to be rebuffed? It would be humiliating, one of those moments that would ensure that my pride was never recovered, and there was no way that I was going to take a step in that direction…no matter how much I may have wanted to do so.

Thankfully, the Sarge saved me from myself. "Hey Cooper, what do American beer and having sex in a canoe have in common?"

That joke was an old one, I'd heard it at least twenty times before, but I was too busy feeling grateful to him for bailing me out to ruin the moment for him. "I don't know, Sarge," I lied, "what _do_ American beer and having sex in a canoe have in common?"

He chuckled as he replied, a sound that made me feel all tingly inside. "They're both fucking close to water."

* * *

><p>"That damned cow came in from this direction," Spoon explained, "and went straight off the edge, to land in the ravine and make me shit my pants, while Terry had a fucking eppy, if you'll recall, Sarge….."<p>

"Out of the frying pan and into the fire, eh, Sarge?" Joe interrupted, earning a glare from Spoon, who hadn't quite finished humiliating Terry.

We were knelt down, me, the Sarge and Spoon, surveying the trail that our bovine party crasher had left behind…and it was all that I could do, to keep my face, or, more accurately, my _lips_ away from the Sarge's neck.

"It must have been bleeding to death when it fell," Campbell said, adding his own bit to the explanation. "That being said, it could've stumbled about for miles before it got here."

"Well, it was a kindness that the poor bastard left us a nice little trail to follow, innit?" the Sarge replied, throwing what might have been a wink in my direction as he rose to his feet.

"Wouldn't that amount to us looking for trouble?" I asked quietly, a question that changed the expression on the Sarge's face in a heartbeat.

"No, Cooper, that amounts to us having a looksee," he replied, clearly annoyed that I'd dared to second-guess his intentions.

"Hold on, Sarge," Terry said, saving me from a further bollocking by drawing the ire of our commander in his direction. "Couldn't we just wait, and report all of this when we get back?"

"We will definitely report this when we get back, Terry, but given that I am somewhat curious, and it's on our way, what do you say that we have a look right now, eh?"

He shoved past me, gently, but rudely just the same, and I knew that it was dangerous to do so, but I just couldn't keep myself from rolling my eyes at his heavy-handed tactics. He was a good sergeant, the best, but he was still a man, and they tended to get a little pissy when you objected to what they said, thought and believed. That being said, he'd given an order, and I wasn't going to say or do anything that would encourage the others to piss and moan, was I?

"You heard the Sarge, lads," I said, taking the place behind our beloved leader and amusing myself with a glance at his little, but very cute, backside. "Let's go have a looksee, alright?"

* * *

><p>The trail was an easy one to follow. It was a given that creatures that were dying didn't bother to cover their tracks…granted, cows never bothered, but either way, we had no trouble at all following the "bread crumbs" that the lumbering beast had left behind. It was a nice day, the scenery was pretty and picturesque, and I found that I was almost enjoying the stroll…or, that is, I would have, had the Sarge not been behaving like he was enduring one hellacious case of PMS.<p>

He must have seen something that interested him, because he stopped, very suddenly, and gave us the signal that told us to freeze, followed closely by the one that told us to crouch down. We immediately did as he'd ordered, and no one said a word as the Sarge moved forward to take hold of the thing that had caught his attention. There was a hunk of hair, or, rather, of fur, caught on a tree branch and the Sarge studied it for a moment, then threw it to the ground and gave us the signal to move out.

We had another little stroll, taking in the surroundings, before the Sarge gave the signal to freeze once more, a command that we listened to as effectively as a group of toddlers would have, once we spotted the mess of entrails that covered the ground. The Sarge knelt down and drew out his knife, spearing something that I couldn't identify and lifting it up, to take a better look at it.

"Oh, yeah," he muttered, "these are natural causes and I'm a monkey's fecking uncle….."

His words were punctuated by a gunshot sounding in the distance, one that was accompanied by a flare shooting up into the sky. "Fucking brilliant," the Sarge growled. "What's this latest round of bullshit, eh?"

None of us had an answer that wouldn't piss him off, and we wisely kept our gobs shut and followed him through a narrow ravine in the direction that the flare had come from. The trip seemed to drag on; though it had to have gone fairly quickly, and the next thing I knew we were walking into what seemed to be an established camp…one that was dripping with blood and looked like it had been used for a makeshift slaughter floor.

I spotted a Heckler & Koch MP5A2 lying all by its lonesome on the ground and quickly claimed it as my own. It beat my L85A1 hands down, as did the live ammo that was readily available for the taking, now that it was clear as day that things had just taken a decided turn into the land of what was thoroughly FUBAR in nature.

It was obvious that an attack of some sort had happened, given the shambles that we saw lying about, but where in hell were the owners of all of this prime equipment…and why in hell were there what looked to be entrails scattered about, here and there, like that was a common accessory to have about whilst camping?

"Saint Paul on a fucking pogo stick," the Sarge growled. "What a bloody mess."

"What is this, Sarge?" Terry asked, resorting, once more, to stupid questions. "What happened here, eh?"

"This is getting more and more fucked-up by the minute, eh, Sarge?" Joe added.

"Aw, sweet Christ," Bruce muttered disgustedly, lifting his boot, which had landed, dead center, in what looked to be a pile of intestines.

"Alright, lads, don't get all hysterical on me," the Sarge said, quietly, in a tone that conveyed comfort, while keeping a tight grip on the authoritative touch that he needed. "We've got a few casualties, as you can undoubtedly see, so ditch those old lady rifles and help yourself to whatever's lying around, then stand to, alright? We've found ourselves some live, and undeniably hostile adversaries, haven't we? That means that if anyone, even that sweet bitch Little Red Riding Hood, comes at us with a bazooka and a pissy attitude, I expect you to blow their fucking head off, right?"

I waited until he'd turned to look at me, then I tossed him the submachine gun that I'd claimed for myself. He gave me a quick smile, one that held no humor whatsoever, and nodded his thanks to me. I acknowledged it with a nod of my own, then found another weapon laying close by, surveying the story that the camp told once more, to ensure that I hadn't missed anything, before I told it to him.

"It looks like they got hit hard and fast, Sarge," I said. "Every single one of these mags are full. No one got off a shot, not one single round….."

"Yeah, well, that's all fine and well, Coop," Bruce said, "but if they're all dead, then where are their bodies, eh?"

"Too right," the Sarge muttered. "That fixes it, innit? Alright, Corporal, I want you to call this in, tell them I need an emergency airlift ASAP."

"You got it, Sarge," Campbell said, sitting down on a clear spot to radio in…then adding his scream to the one that reverberated through the camp as some asshole sporting an H & K flare gun rose, seemingly from the dead, and gave a battle cry that damn near made me pee my pants.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

I See A Bad Moon Arisin'

Wells' POV

We didn't need another guest at our party. We were doing just fine with the six that were there, and we certainly didn't need some random asshole showing up out of nowhere, especially when he did so by seemingly rising from the dead. I was fairly certain that we'd already established that everyone in this camp had been wiped out. The fact that there was blood covering everything and piles of entrails strewn out on the ground spoke volumes about the fact that everyone had met a very quick and violent end…so where in hell had this loony bastard come from?

It was one thing to pop up out of nowhere, screaming your bloody head off and scare the piss out of everyone, but when you did that sort of thing to people who were surrounded by death and destruction…well, let's just say that you were asking for a negative reaction…especially if you were waving a damned gun around. It did not matter that it was a flare gun that he was brandishing, it did not matter what manner of hell he'd survived, all that I cared about was keeping my lads safe, and this wanker was doing everything in his power to seemingly put them in harm's way. Needless to say, that pissed me off a bit, and I marveled at my self-control, for being able to resist the urge to unload a dozen rounds, at the very least, into his head.

His eyes scrambled 'round at the group, searching for a spot to land. "Please help me," he murmured, and then fainted dead away, like a featherbrained teenage girl who'd just had her first kiss. We all stood there for a half second, staring blankly like our brains had gone on holiday and left our bodies behind, and then Cooper, God bless her for her competency, sprang into action.

"Sir?" she asked the man who'd fallen back down into his hiding place. "You need to wake up, sir. You need to tell us what happened here."

"Blimey, what in hell happened to his chest?" I asked quietly, leaning over Cooper, to peer at the poor bugger who was wearing a trio of what I would have sworn were claw marks down his front. "You can patch him up, can't you, Cooper?"

She turned to look at me, then back at her patient. "I can definitely try, Sarge," she replied, "but I'm going to need a little help."

Cooper was our go-to girl when it came to being patched up, and I frequently acted as her assistant, so it came as second nature for me to squat down beside her and await instruction. Bruce had jumped onto the comm, just as he'd been told, and was frantically trying to raise those who would come to rescue us, and I could see him growing more and more frantic with each effort that he made.

"Spearhead patrol, this is spearhead patrol, are you receiving me?"

"This poor bastard looks like he picked a fight with Jack the Ripper and came out on the losing side of things," I joked, not knowing why I was trying to be funny at a time like the present, but unable to keep myself from doing so.

"Too right," Cooper agreed, digging through her bags for the tools that she would need. "I can patch him up, Sarge, but he's going to need some real deal medical attention if he's going to survive."

"We've got an emergency here!" Bruce said loudly, his tone growing more agitated with every moment that passed. "Code 64…do you read me…Code 64!"

"I need you to get me out of here as quickly as possible," the patient said, staring up at Cooper, as if he believed that she was the one who was in charge. "Do you hear me? Do you understand me? I can't stay here…I've got to go! They lied to us…they said that there was only one of them….."

Cheeky bastard, wasn't he? Who in hell did he think he was, to be handing out orders? His words made my back bristle, but thankfully Cooper was a tad more levelheaded than I was.

"Yes, we're working on that," she assured him. "We're working on getting _all_ of us out of here, alright, sir?"

I don't know what she injected into his arm. It was probably a little cocktail to kill his pain, and, hopefully, to shut him up. There was too much noise, what with his whining, Campbell's pleas for help and all of the other racket as everyone tried to get all of their shit together. Needless to say, my ears were aching, and then Spoon decided to throw his own bit of noise into the mix.

"Sarge?"

"Not right now, please, Spoonie?" I replied, doing my damnedest to assist Cooper as best as I could.

"Are you receiving me, dammit?" Campbell asked.

Cooper made a motion that told me that she needed me to help her lift her patient, and I did just as she'd asked, wincing, to myself, when I heard the groan that he released. He would have retained my sympathy, had he made do with moaning like he was dying, but what he said next took away any compassion that I felt and made me consider dropping him back down to the ground as hard as I could.

"You fucking bitch!" he muttered, drawing in a breath between teeth that were tightly clenched in pain. "Are you completely incompetent, hmm?"

"Bloody hell," Bruce growled, "Bloody fucking hell."

"What is it, Bruce?" Cooper asked, completely ignoring her patient, all while shooting me a look that said that I had to keep my cool, whether I wanted to or not.

"There's no signal," he replied, "the damned thing acts like its dead or summat."

"What do you mean, 'dead'?" Terry asked, shifting back and forth again, like he needed to take a pee. "Are you sure, Bruce? Did you check everything?"

"Well, of course I did, you fucking twat!" Campbell, who was usually so calm, cool and collected, shouted. "I checked it, I double-checked it, and then I checked it all over again before we left and it worked just fine!"

"You're doing fine, Bruce," I said, watching Cooper as she tore open a packet of sulfa powder with her teeth and dumped the contents onto her patient's wounds, an action which earned her further bollocking from said asshole. "Just stay on the line and see if you can find a signal. Terry, this lot must have had a comms system somewhere. Have a looksee around the camp and see if you can spot it, alright?"

Terry nodded and swiftly went about his task, his fear momentarily forgotten, now that he had something to do that didn't involve standing around and sniveling.

"Sarge?" Spoon asked, grating across my nerves for the second time.

"Spoon, I don't have time for stupid questions. Why don't you do a quick sweep of the camp instead and see that we've collected everything that'll come in handy, alright?"

"Too right, Sarge," he replied, then pointed at his, no, make that _my_ watch. "But you need to listen….."

"Not _fucking_ now, Spoon!"

"This is spearhead patrol calling," Bruce said, sounding a bit more defeated, as opposed to frantic, which might not have been as irritating, but still held the potential to be more dangerous. "Can you hear me? Are you receiving me?"

"They lied to me," the man on the ground moaned, crying out, just a wee bit, as Cooper began binding his wounds. "There was only supposed to be the one….."

"Aw, fuck me," I muttered, "this operation is compromised to hell and back and I've woken to find myself living in a goddamn cuckoo clock…well, don't keep me in suspense, Cooper...can you give me a clue about what's going on or not?"

"I'm not a bloody fortuneteller…sir," she replied, calm and cool and collected…and just a little aggravated. "All I know is that this was a well-organized camp, with honest to goodness soldiers, judging by this pissy bastard. I don't know if this was a surprise element added to our exercise, but if it was, it was done on the sly, because this prick isn't sporting any advertisements as to who, or what, he is. There's no badge on his cap, no insignias…just his dog tags."

"So you're saying that this is some sort of covert operation, eh?"

"That's not the million dollar question," she replied. "What we ought to be asking is why they felt the need to tote tranquilizer darts and nets around with them. If they're on some sort of special ops mission, then why are they carrying gear that's better suited for a safari?"

"Sarge…we located their radio….."

I looked up at Terry, who was dangling the damned comm by its strap, like he was a good pup who'd brought his master a present. It was clearly wrecked, you might even say that it was thoroughly fucked, which meant that we, in turn, were thoroughly fucked as well.

"Oh, for chrissakes," I muttered, "could this day possibly get any worse?"

"They lied to me!" the patient on the ground shouted, showing a burst of energy that he oughtn't to have been capable of. "There was only supposed to be the one!"

"I swear by all that's holy, if you don't shut up about that….," I warned.

"Eh, what's he going on about, Sarge?" Terry asked, still holding the strap and looking like a fucking idiot.

"Never mind that, you git," I replied, "Just get back on stag, alright?"

"Please," the man on the ground pleaded. "For the love of God, you've got to get me out of here before it's too late…they'll be back, you know…I can't be here when they come back….."

"You've got one _hell_ of a one-track mind," I muttered. "Who is coming back, eh? Who did this?"

He struggled against the hold that I had on him, until it became obvious that I wasn't going to turn loose of him. "Aw, for fuck's sake, you don't understand a bloody thing, do you? They killed them all…my men…they tore them to pieces, right in front of my eyes….."

"This is hypothermia, Sarge," Cooper said quietly, her voice carrying to me easily enough, in spite of all the racket that was surrounding us on all sides. "We've got to get him warm as quickly as possible; otherwise he's going to die."

"I can see that Cooper, but I'm not exactly toting an electric blanket in my bag, am I? I suppose that you can snuggle up to him if you want to, but short of that, I don't see any immediate solution to our problem….."

"Sarge?" Spoon asked for the third time, which was all that it took to send my temper soaring.

"Not…fucking…now…Spoon!"

"With all due respect, sir, it has to be now, because it's going to be dark in half an hour and I'd be willing to bet that we'll be royally screwed if we're still here once the lights go out."

"Does anybody fucking copy me?!" Campbell rang out, adding a little absurd hilarity to the hysteria, and then, as if on cue, everyone righted themselves and got their belongings assembled, without me having to tell them to do so. We all took a seat as Bruce began to curse long and emphatically, followed by a quick disassembly of his comm unit.

"Any luck, lad?" I asked, and then winced, knowing that I deserved a good kick to the knackers for asking such a stupid question.

Campbell shook his head…and miraculously resisted the urge to bruise my balls. "The fuses are buggered, Sarge," he replied.

"Well, you can jury-rig it, can't you?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was bodgy from the start, or some of the damp might have gotten inside the casing. Whatever happened, the circuits are fried, and there's nowt to be done to fix it."

"Well, there's no use in hanging on to something that is useless, so you may as well chuck it, alright?"

"It is, and I will," Campbell replied, "but I also found _this_ inside the comm, Sarge."

_This_ was a chip of some sort, the sight of which instantly made the heat of my temper rise by a notch or two. "It was attached to the inside of the unit," Bruce continued, "And before you ask, no, it's not part of the radio. It looks to me like it might be a transmitter of some sort."

"Yeah, Bruce, but why would anyone put a bug in our radio?" Terry asked.

"Aw, fuck me," Spoon said, "It's the Kobayashi Maru test, innit? They made it to where we can't win, no matter what we do, didn't they?"

"Shut it, Spoonie," I told him, before he could get the crowd all riled up. "No worries, Terry. Someone's just taking the piss, that's all. Some muckety-muck didn't want Joe to plant his fat arse on the radio, trying to catch a footy score, right?"

"That's an early shot, that is," Joe said, answering in Terry's stead.

"Did you find anything that might be of use, guys?" Cooper asked, falling into the role of my second without me having to ask her to do so, just as she always did.

"We've got a few weapons, a bit of ammunition and a couple of magnesium flares, and that's about it for what's worth saving," Spoon replied, shuffling through his bounty.

"Ditch those ITs, lads," I instructed, "from this moment on, our exercise is null and void. I imagine that you've all collected some live rounds for yourself, and if you haven't done so, rectify that oversight right now."

"That won't make any difference where the outcome of this is concerned, Sergeant," the patient said very calmly. "You can shoot them with as many rounds as you like, but they won't die."

Damn, but he was a regular old gloom and doom sort, wasn't he? "That may be," I replied, "but it makes me feel a hell of a lot better to be prepared. It rests my mind and eases my soul….."

"If peace of mind is your objective, I suggest that you instruct your _lads_ to run for their lives before they have their legs torn out from under them….."

Alright, I'd had enough. "Now, why don't you behave like a proper gentleman and kindly keep your fat gob _shut_," I snarled, leaning toward him, until he could not look away from me. "You are scaring my lads, _sir_, and I that doesn't sit well with me….."

I was interrupted by a sudden and very ominous sound that oughtn't to have been heard. Something in the woods had just let loose with a growl, a low and menacing rumble that made everyone in the camp grow quiet in a heartbeat. I couldn't place where the sound had come from, but I could say that it sounded like a dog that was definitely pissed off…a very big dog…and we were the ones who'd made it mad. The growling sound was enough to make the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but the howling sound that followed, paired with the fact that it had grown very dark in the camp, made my stomach pitch 'round in the worst possible way.

"What in the flaming _fuck_ was that?" Joe asked, aiming his newly acquired firearm from one side of the camp to the other.

"Oh, no," Terry said nervously, nearly whimpering as he spoke. "No…no…no….."

"'Oh, _no'?_" Bruce asked incredulously. "How about 'oh, shit' instead?"

"Right, lads," I called, aiming for a tone that was cool and calming, yet authoritative in nature. "Grab whatever you can carry easily and head for the tree line as quickly as possible."

Cooper rose to her feet, struggling beneath the weight of her patient, who was muttering and cursing beneath his breath. I knew that she couldn't move him along at a fast enough pace, not all on her own, but thankfully, not to mention surprisingly, Joe went to help her without me saying a word about it.

Spoon led the retreat, running for the tree line as if his ass was on fire and there was water to be found within the forest…I suppose that wasn't the best example, was it, given that he would make the flames worse by running…aw, well. The point was that he legged it with an amount of speed that was very impressive, and that made it even more remarkable when we all caught up with him as quickly as we did, even Cooper, who had the task of toting a heavy and exceedingly bitchy patient along with every step that she took.

We reached our objective in no time at all and promptly took up defensive positions. I would have sworn that Cooper smiled, just a little, as she dropped the wounded soldier to the forest floor, but the moment moved by so quickly that I couldn't say whether or not she'd truly done so with any certainty. I _could_ say that I wouldn't have faulted her if she had found momentary humor in his hisses and groans. Had I been in her place I would have kicked him in the ass after he landed…and maybe, just maybe, I would have ground the heel of my boot against his wounds for good measure.

"Alright, lads," I called. "I'm going to need one of you to volunteer for a little rearguard action, right?"

In days past there would have been a fair amount of chuckling at my words, followed by a variety of suggestions for which of the group would be the one who'd enjoy a little "rearguard action" the most, but this wasn't the time for making jokes, was it?

"I'll do it, Sarge," Bruce called, and I thanked him, in my mind, for displaying a sense of bravery that he couldn't have truly felt.

"Alright, Campbell, you've got it," I told him. "When we clear out of here, you're going to fall back, and we'll be ahead to cover you. Off you go, lad, and be careful, right? There's no need for stupid heroics, is there?"

He met my eyes and nodded before he moved away from us, leaving me to hand out the rest of my orders. It was the moments like these that I hated, because in times like these I had never, and undoubtedly would never be able to shake the feeling that I might have been sending everyone off towards a certain death. That being said, I was the one who was in charge, and I had to do my job…no matter how difficult it was to do so.

"Alright, Spoon, you're on point. Joe, you help with the patient. Terry, you're up next, and Cooper, you'll be with me. Come on now, lads, let's move in double time, now, and go!"

Everyone moved on cue…everyone save for Terry, that is. He was still looking 'round and dancing about, like he was a half a second from pissing his pants. "C'mon, sweetheart," I growled, clamping a hand none too gently onto his shoulder. "Get a fucking move on, alright?"

I stayed where I was for just a moment after he'd gone, staring into the direction that Bruce had gone in, and then I legged it. I'd told Cooper that she was to stay with me, and that meant that I had to get to where she was at. It was moments like these that made me curse the day that they'd ever allowed women into the military. It wasn't because I thought that they couldn't do the job, because I knew that they could. No, my motives were more selfish than that, because I knew that if they'd never let women in, they never would have let the woman I loved in…but then I'd never have known her, would I?

I guess that meant that I was screwed no matter which way I turned, but that didn't stop me from feeling a burst of gratitude when I saw her waiting for me within the cover of the trees. In truth, they'd all held up their movements for me, but her face was the one that stood out above the rest, and all that I had to do was lock my eyes onto hers as I ran…I just had to keep her in my sight, and everything would be alright.

Suddenly, the howling sound rose up again, infusing itself with the rising wind, and I turned 'round, weapon at the ready, but there was nothing to be seen…more importantly, there was no Bruce to be seen, and he ought to have been coming along behind us, guarding our collective asses as we made a run for it. I couldn't hear any screams or shots, the sort of sounds that would have told me that he was in trouble, but I slipped into Papa Bear mode none the less and immediately went looking for him.

I made it back to one of the clearings and found no sign of him, no matter which way I looked, and then, suddenly, I heard a loud sound that was a cross between a growl and a howl and I whirled in that direction, weapon at the ready…but there was nothing to be seen. I moved that way carefully, turning this way and that, 'round and 'round, waiting to blast hell out of the first thing that wasn't Bruce…or one of the other lads…but all that I saw was trees, trees and more fucking trees.

It was eenie, meenie, minie, or moe by that time, because I'd gotten turned around a bit, so I decided on minie and moved off in that direction. I could only imagine the bollocking that I would take, once the lads found out that I'd lost my way, and then something captured my attention. There was a splash of something that was red and wet on the ground, something that looked a hell of a lot like blood, and I'd just bent down to take a closer look when something that was big and kind of hairy came bursting onto the scene.

I didn't get a good look at what it was, but I could say that it was making that growling-howling sound as it leapt out at me. I hit the deck, flat on my ass, and let loose a controlled burst of rounds before I tumbled beneath a fallen branch that was resting a good half a foot or so off of the ground. I got a good look at the fucker that had attacked me then, but my mind couldn't make heads or tails of what I was seeing…especially once the ugly bastard reached after me, beneath the branch, with a furry hand that ended in razor-sharp claws.

My next blast of rounds was a went on a wee bit longer than the first had, and then I found myself turning a somersault…and landing right next to Bruce, who was as dead as a body could be.

"Sweet Jesus," I whimpered, taking in the sight of his torn body…and all the blood, so much fucking blood. I almost started crying, and I might have done so, but my will to live kicked in to gear and I jumped to my feet to make a run for it instead. I was a firm believer in the code that you never left a man behind…to die…but Campbell, God rest his soul, was already dead, and the rest of my lads, myself included, weren't, and I needed to get back to them before they were.

It was a nice idea, a swell plan, you might say, but unfortunately the big, ugly and thoroughly hairy son of a bitch that was chasing after me had something else in mind. It caught me 'round the stomach with those razor-sharp talons as I legged it, and I fell to the ground, and stared in horrified wonder, as my guts came spilling out of my body.


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Hope You Got Your Things Together

Cooper's POV

He was an inconsiderate bastard, a thoughtless, careless prick, and when I found him, I was going to kill him with my own two hands…oh, who the hell was I kidding? I wasn't going to kill him, I wasn't even going to maim him, but that didn't change the fact that he was an inconsiderate bastard and a thoughtless, careless prick, did it? He was a fine one for handing out orders to all his lads, telling us not to be heroes, to keep ourselves safe, only to go charging off after Bruce without so much as a word of farewell, much less an explanation. Why was it acceptable for him to risk his life for another, if we weren't allowed to do the same?

Well, I wasn't having it. I wasn't content to sit back and wait for him to emerge the valiant victor, with Bruce slung over his shoulder, was I? I was going to go after him, I was going to see if he needed my help, and it wasn't because I loved him, or because the thought of him in danger made me sick to my stomach. I was going to go after him because he needed someone to watch his back. The only difference was that I told the others where I was going, as opposed to disappearing like a fart in the wind, without so much as a single word as to where I was headed.

I kept on the path that I was certain was correct, walking as quickly as I could manage with the weight of all of my gear…until I heard the shots ring out, one controlled burst of rounds, followed by another burst that wasn't quite as restrained. That was when I began to run, adding my own jingling and jangling, as well as the noise of my pounding boots, to the sounds of my quickened breathing and my heartbeat thundering away in my ears. I was drawn to a series of noises, ones that sounded suspiciously like growls, and burst onto the scene right behind a creature that was something straight out of a nightmare, something that oughtn't to have existed.

"Aw, fuck me!" I heard the Sarge cry from the vicinity of the ground, and that was all the encouragement that I needed to loose a volley of rounds into the tall, hairy and thoroughly ugly bastard who'd arrived just ahead of me. Every bullet found its intended target and the monster loped away, yelping and whining with what I hoped was agonizing pain. I spared it a glance as I rushed to kneel beside the Sarge, just to ensure that it had left, and then I took a deep breath, to strengthen my resolve, and gave all of my attention to the man I loved…who immediately began to shout orders at me.

It amazed me that he had the ability to raise his voice, given the state he was in, but he did so with gusto as I turned this way and that, weapon at the ready, for one final sweep before I went to work on him. I told myself that I would have to look at his wound, that I would have to bind it as best as I could, if he was going to make it, but I needed five seconds to collect myself before I went to work, lest I burst into tears and render myself useless to him.

"Dammit, Cooper, get your ass off of the ground and out of here!" he bellowed. "Aw, shit…I'm done for, mate…that fucker sliced me open….."

He glanced down at the tangled mess of his guts, brought outside for a look about, when they ought to have been inside where it was nice and warm. "What the hell are you doing?" he thundered. "Didn't I tell you to piss off, Cooper?"

"Yeah, well, you said that there were to be no acts of heroism, didn't you, you bloody hypocrite?" I fired back, grateful to him for stirring my temper to life, so I'd be less likely to shame us both by crying like a newborn babe. "What happened to Bruce, Sarge?"

"Oh, Jesus," he said, almost whimpering as he spoke. "He's there," he pointed, "and there…and there…he's fucking everywhere! He was ripped apart, for chrissakes, and now he's all over the place!"

I felt like shedding a tear for my fallen mate, hell, I felt like having a good, long sob, but there wasn't time for that now. The big and hairy bastard who'd killed Bruce and ripped open the Sarge's gut was gone, for the moment, but chances were that it would be back. I didn't see a trail of blood leading away from the clearing, which meant that I hadn't wounded the creature with my shots, though I couldn't fathom how I hadn't, and that meant that I had a very limited time to work with, didn't it?

I opened my bag and began to grab the supplies that I would need to patch the Sarge's wound, only to have him reach up and take hold of my arm. "Dammit, Cooper, what the hell is wrong with you?" he growled. "I believe that I told you to sod off, didn't I? I didn't say it for my fucking health, did I? I told you to get out of here, and that's an order, so you'll kindly take your pretty ass on out of here, won't you?"

At any other time I would have been thrilled that he'd referred to any part of my body as being pretty in nature, but there wasn't any time for that sort of foolishness now, was there? It was in my nature to tell him that _he_ could sod off, because I wasn't going anywhere, but I simply ignored him instead, and continued to gather my supplies…until the sound of something big, ugly and hairy bursting through the trees stopped me in my tracks.

"Aw, fuck me!" the Sarge shouted. "It's time for round two, innit?"

We both opened fire, and gave the hulking beast a volley that made it jerk back and howl. "That's right, you son of a bitch!" the Sarge bellowed. "Just go away and fuck yourself, alright?"

I bent over him once he was done, capturing and holding his eyes with my own. "With all due respect, sir, you can take your 'orders' and shove them up your ass," I told him firmly, then, with a deep breath, determinedly went to work, putting him back together as best as I could.

"Aw, shit, Cooper," Sarge wailed, struggling, like a dumbass, to sit up so he could get a better look at the mess. "My fucking guts are hanging out….."

The rest of his words were lost to tears as he lay back down and started to cry. I knew that he had to have been humiliated, in spite of the direness of his circumstances, because he was one of those who _never_ cried, especially not in front of his lads, but there was no time to comfort him now.

"Too right," I replied, pleased to hear that I'd managed quite nicely to keep my emotions out of my voice. "But don't you worry, Sarge. I'm going to put them back where they belong, alright?"

The cry that he loosed when I commenced doing so was enough to make me falter…for just a moment…but I knew that I couldn't stop. If I stopped, he would die, it was as simple as that, and I would be damned before I'd let that happen.

"Bloody hell, Cooper!" he shouted. "Just leave me be, will you? The damned things aren't going to fit, so why in hell are you trying to shove them back in, for chrissakes?"

"Of course they'll fit!" I assured him, continuing to push his entrails back inside, where they belonged, thoroughly ignoring the way he was cursing me with every breath. "They fit just fine a few minutes ago, didn't they?"

"Oh, shit, Cooper!" he yelled. "There's too much! There's no way that they'll go back in!"

"Now, Sarge," I shouted, tossing aside the placating tone that I'd been trying to use, given that it wasn't doing a damned bit of good. "I'm willing to bet that you say the same thing each and every time that you unzip for a piss, but it goes back inside, doesn't it? I know that it does, because I've seen you plenty of times afterward, yet I've never seen your pecker…have I?"

"Is that a request, Cooper?" he asked…then screamed as if he was being murdered, when I somehow, by the grace of God, managed to tuck his guts inside and helped him to his feet.

"You could call it that," I replied, slipping my shoulder beneath his arm, while my hand, which was full of his entrails, held him together. "But not right now, sir…I think that I've seen quite enough of you for the time being."

* * *

><p>The Sarge wasn't quite as heavy as my other patient had been, but it was still difficult for me to run when I was burdened down with his weight, in addition to the heaviness of my bags. That being said, there was no way that I wasn't going to leg it as quickly as I could, because that damned…whatever the hell it was…was close behind us and gaining on us.<p>

We were doing as well as could be expected, and then the Sarge stumbled, and fell, and sent both of us tumbling to the forest floor. "Son of a bitch," he moaned, then bit back cries of pain as I reached down to pull him back onto his feet, once I'd regained my own footing. "I'm sorry, Cooper…I can't…I can't…just leave me….."

"That's enough of that bullshit," I replied, slipping my shoulder beneath him and helping him along. "You're not dying, Sarge, you can be saved, so I won't leave you behind…and besides which, you still own me a glimpse of your cock, don't you?"

"You're a cheeky little girl, aren't you, Cooper?" he muttered, crying out in agony with every step that we took. "Alright, I'll keep going…but only if you'll play along with our little game of show and tell when the time comes…deal?"

God, what a typical male response…and nothing could have made me happier. Men who were thinking of tits and pussy had to have possessed a fairly strong will to live, and that meant that he wasn't giving up…not that I would have allowed him to do so.

"Deal," I replied, spotting the lads ahead, waiting for us in the trees. They were all standing with weapons at the ready, wearing expressions that registered relief, then sadness, and finally the most disturbing of all, shock, followed closely by fear.

"It's on your six!" Terry shouted. "There's…something…coming up right behind you!"

The Sarge slid out of my grasp and dropped to one knee, loosing a volley of rounds, while I stayed on my feet and followed suit, thankfully encouraging the hairy asshole that was stalking us to fall back to a much more respectable distance.

"C'mon, sir," I said, reaching down to help the Sarge to his feet. "We can't let the others have too much of a head start, can we?"

* * *

><p>Spoon led the retreat through the forest, running ahead of us, and whirling 'round, once he'd gained some distance, to gauge the danger that was gaining on us at an alarming rate of speed.<p>

"Target in sight!" he shouted, firing one round, followed closely by another, from the H & K rifle that he'd "borrowed" from the camp. "Keep moving you fucking gits…don't stop moving!"

It was a swell idea, in his mind, that he would be the one to provide the only covering fire, but he wasn't the Sarge, and none of the lads, me included, were obliged to follow his orders. That was why we all took up defensive positions and joined our own rounds with his…for a moment, until it became obvious that we were sitting ducks, and then we were happy to follow his "orders", while he hung back and covered our collective asses…for a moment, until it became obvious that _he_ was a sitting duck, which was when he hurried to join our little group.

"Target spotted!" the Sarge yelled, whirling out of my hold, to unleash his weapon…even though he had to have known that doing so was bound to irritate me. We gathered in a circle, back-to-back, and fired at the great furry beast, which seemed to appear in several different spots at once, then, one by one, we made our retreat. I ran over to the Sarge, who was cursing long and loudly as his weapon refused to work properly for him, and placed my trusty old shoulder beneath him once more, to encourage him to move his ass while he still had one to move.

"Just leave it!" I shouted, hurrying him along.

"You ought to know better than that by now, Cooper!" he replied, righting the wrong with his firearm and providing one controlled burst, then another, as we legged it down the hill, leading to what I knew was a road…a road that was covered with the dimness of dusk and a thick fog, through which I could just make out a pair of headlights coming our way.

Spoon stopped to lean against a tree and stared through the gloom, taking note of the lights that were our only salvation. "This way, lads!" he shouted. "Stay on my ass and follow me, double time!"

I don't know how in the hell we managed to make it down that hill without taking the example of Jack and Jill, but we reached the bottom with our feet on solid ground, each and every last one of us…save for Spoon, who tumbled onto his ass and rolled right into the path of the vehicle that was meant to be our ticket out of this hellhole.

"Stop!" he yelled, holding up his hand, as if he'd suddenly acquired the powers that Magneto possessed. "For fuck's sake, stop!"

The driver did just as he asked, slamming on the brakes and bringing the vehicle to a full stop…inches away from Spoon's face. I reached his side a half second later and pulled him onto his feet, just as the driver's door opened and a rather frantic looking woman popped her head out to yell at us.

"Get inside!" she shouted. "Move it, now!"

"Everybody stay on me!" I shouted, while the woman with the silly hat continued to order us about, reminding us in a rather shrill tone that we needed to hurry, as if we hadn't figured that out for ourselves. Spoon and Joe laid down covering fire, while Terry got the Sarge inside the vehicle, and then Spoon ran out of rounds and pushed Joe ahead, then followed him into the back of the vehicle.

I checked to be sure that everyone was where they ought to be, and then I hopped into the last available seat. The woman who'd stopped for us threw the metal beast into gear and let her foot off of the clutch, pushing down on the gas…and going nowhere as the tires dug into the mud beneath them. There was a great crash as something that was big and furry landed on the roof of the vehicle and everyone in the back started shouting and flailing about, cursing and threatening, as they "encouraged" our savior to move her ass.

"I'm trying!" she replied, and I bit back a scream as our pursuer's head moved past the window, sliding it's lips, then, oh, God, it's _tongue_ across the glass. Moments later it returned to its spot on the top of the vehicle and plunged an arm…an arm that ended in razor-sharp talons…through the roof as easily and effortlessly as a hot knife would cut through butter.

It grabbed at Spoon and damn near caught him, and I shouted, above the din, for the woman to put the car into reverse. It was a miracle that she heard me, what with the cacophony all around her, but somehow she did, and rushed to do as I'd asked as yet another head moved past the window outside.

"Somebody stab the bastard!" the Sarge shouted and Spoon pulled out his knife, plunging it through the beast's arm and sawing it back and forth.

"Now put it back into drive," I called out, as blood poured out of the wound in the monster's arm and sprayed us with its warmth. The vehicle had shifted back a bit in reverse, working its way free of the mud, and when our rescuer threw it back into drive and laid her foot down on the gas, it shot forward, tossing the bastard on the roof onto the ground. Spoon's bloody knife fell to the floor and rolled around crazily as we zoomed away, and for one strange moment I was tempted to laugh at the sight, for some odd reason, but thankfully I managed to resist the urge to do so. I suppose that it was just my nerves, but I knew that my humor, no matter how ironic, would not be appreciated at that moment.


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

I See Earthquakes and Lightning

Cooper's POV

God, what a mess this trip had turned out to be. Bruce was dead…how in hell could he be gone, when I'd just been laughing with him this afternoon? The Sarge had damn near been disemboweled…well, to be perfectly honest, he _had_ been disemboweled, and the sound of his moans and groans with every bump that we hit was almost more than I could bear. There was nothing that I would have liked more than to have a good, long cry, but there wasn't time for that sort of namby-pamby bullshit right now, was there? I could be a bitty baby later on, after I came out of this situation alive…that is, _if_ I came out of it alive.

"Is everyone okay?" I asked, not thinking, until after the words had left my mouth, that my question had to rate amongst the stupidest that had ever been asked. "Is anyone else hurt? Spoon, are you doing alright?"

"I'm as good as can be expected," he replied. "But why isn't Bruce with us? Shouldn't Bruce be here too?"

The Sarge made a sound that was almost a whimper and shuddered in my arms. "He's…oh, God…Bruce…is…he's…Bruce…gone…aw, fuck me….."

"It's alright," I whispered, careful to keep my mouth right beside his ear and my voice as quiet as I could manage, so that I might ensure that our conversation would be kept between the two of us. "This isn't your fault, Sarge; you know that, don't you? None of this is down to you, alright?"

He took a deep breath, one that made him groan in pain, and then, wonder of wonders, he nodded, which showed that he'd heard and actually agreed with me. Of course, he might have just been doing so to ease my mind, though, if I were to be honest, I didn't think that he had the ability at that moment to lie to me.

"I need you to stay strong for me," I continued. "We need you with us, Sarge…_I_ need you….."

I felt my cheeks growing warm as it dawned on me that I was revealing too much of myself to him. Thankfully for me, it was dark as pitch inside our rescue vehicle, so none of the lads took notice of my flaming face, and the Sarge was in no condition to pay much attention to anything that I said. I turned to look toward the front of the jeep and noticed that our savior was watching us in her rearview mirror.

"Thank you for helping us," I called to her, mindful of the fact that each and every last one of us would have been done for, had this woman not stopped to take us in.

"That's okay," she replied, "what happened back there?"

How in the hell could I hope to explain the situation to her, when I still wasn't sure what had happened myself? It was a rare occasion, to find myself at a loss for words, I usually couldn't keep my mouth shut, but how could I possibly make her understand what we'd been through? Thankfully, Spoon knew exactly what he wanted to say…though that really wasn't much of a surprise, was it?

"You want to know what happened?" he shouted. "We were ambushed by God knows how many hairy, growling fuckers, that's what happened!"

"Yeah, well you should count your lucky stars that I managed to find you," our rescuer replied. "I was just about to give up on any of your lot making it out of there alive."

Hmm…there was something about that admission that didn't sit well with me. "Are you saying that you've been out here this whole time?" I asked.

"I was close by last night and heard the gunfire," she said, "that was enough to tell me that there would be someone who'd need my help, so I've been on the lookout for your arrival."

Her explanation didn't really do much to make me feel better, but this wasn't the time, nor the place, for pressing her for more info, was it?

"Too right, we need help," I told her. "We've got two men with serious injuries, the sort that could be considered life-threatening, if you need any extra initiative, and we need to get them medical attention as soon as possible. The Sarge's injuries are the worst of the two, and I'm going to need to properly dress his wounds before we take him too much further."

She glanced back at me, and then at the Sarge, who was cradled in my arms, and then she turned her eyes back to the road.

"There's only one farm to be found in this glen," she replied. "The family that owns the place are friends of mine, so we could take him there, if you'd like."

No one offered an argument, so I nodded my agreement, and was thankful that there was someone who was willing to risk her life to help us. It was difficult these days to find anyone who gave a damn about their fellow man, and it spoke volumes about this woman's character that she was one of the rare few…at least, I hoped she was.

* * *

><p>We drove on a little while longer, moving through a seemingly endless row of trees, until suddenly we came upon an opening in the forest. The farm was fairly large, with a roomy two-story house and an outbuilding that looked to be a garage of some sort. There were a couple of windows lit up on the bottom floor, and a light was shining above the front door, all of which I took to be good signs…though I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was still terribly wrong.<p>

Our rescuer brought the jeep to a stop in front of the house and I waited until everyone else had exited the vehicle before I gently made my way out, holding one shoulder beneath the Sarge to help him to walk. I suppose if there was one upside to be found in his misery; it was that he was in too much pain to bark at me for treating him like an invalid…though I would happily bear his complaints, if his bitching meant that he was whole once more.

"Hello!" the woman shouted in greeting as she opened the door just a crack. "Is there anyone home?"

For one awful moment I remembered the creature in the forest, and that image, paired with the Sarge's earlier comment about Little Red Riding Hood, nearly made me laugh, but thankfully I managed to resist the urge. I knew better than most of the others that there was nothing funny about the circumstances that we were struggling to survive, and the last thing that I needed was to give in to hysteria brought on by a heightened case of the jitters.

"I'd say that they've stepped out for a spell," I murmured, once several moments had passed us by in silence. It was a ridiculous notion, given the situation that we were in, but when you considered that the alternative was that they'd been ripped to shreds and devoured, it didn't sound all that bad, did it?

"I don't know where they could have gone to," she said, glancing about the property, as if she was waiting for one of the family members to jump out and say boo. "Why would they go out on a night like this?"

I suppose that we could have spent hours pondering that topic, but I wasn't really in the mood, and I damn sure didn't want to stay out in the open.

"That's just great," I muttered, going over my choices in my head for a moment or two, before I landed on one that was completely insane, but was still the best that reality had to offer at the moment. "Terry, you hold onto the Sarge, and don't you dare let him fall, or I swear by all that's holy that I'll slice off your balls and serve them to him for supper."

Terry looked properly frightened and rushed to take command of the care of the Sarge, who was gagging with disgust, presumably at the notion of dining on Terry's knackers. I pulled my recently acquired firearm off of my shoulder and once I'd spotted Spoon, I nodded toward the house and told our savior to stand well back while I slowly made my way inside, gun at the ready.

The inside of the house had a homey, rustic feel to it, with a fire in the hearth and cozy furniture. There were several hunting trophies that had been hung on the wall as decoration, which weren't completely to my taste, but which seemed to fit in well with the atmosphere.

I left Spoon in the doorway as I had a quick looksee in what appeared to be a parlor, and then rejoined him in the entryway, in front of the stairs, which he was happy to climb. His footsteps seemed loud as they touched each wooden rung, but his voice was soft and almost singsong in nature as he called out to our missing hosts.

"Cooee!" he called. "Little pigs, little pigs, come out to play…we've come to raid your pantry and nick your video."

I knew that everyone had their own way of coping with things, but I wasn't overly fond of those who employed a singsong tone to deal with any situation. That was why I stayed silent as I made my way into the spacious kitchen, where I found a table that was set for a late supper and a pot of soup still bubbling on top of the old-fashioned wood burning cook stove. It was a bit unsettling, to walk into a scene that suggested that they'd all disappeared without a trace, so needless to say, I was a wee bit jumpy…a state which was not improved when a sudden scratching noise made itself known from the cupboard nearest the stove.

I needed a couple of seconds to compose myself, and then I began to make my way toward the pantry door, weapon, as always, at the ready. My mind was racing, and imagining one of those beasts hiding behind the door, and for one moment my bravery faltered, and threatened to abandon me altogether, but all that it took was one whispered threat to bring it back where it belonged.

The sounds continued, and the door began to rattle with every step that drew me nearer. I flicked off the light on my H & K, and took a deep breath, then reached out to open the door and found something that was, indeed, quite hairy, but clearly meant me no harm as it bounded out of the cupboard and into freedom. The black and white dog was, in fact, quite friendly, and jumped up to place his paws on my stomach in a greeting, along with a whine, which seemed to be meant as a reassurance that he was my friend, not my foe.

I responded by rubbing him behind his ears and pressing kisses to the top of his head, actions which made him whine even louder and rub his head against me, as if he was badly frightened and needed to be comforted. I suppose that it had been very scary for him, to be locked in that pantry all by himself, while God knows what happened on the other side of the door. That was why I knelt down and made such a fuss over him…well, that and the fact that I loved dogs, that is.

I asked him to sit for me, and he was reluctant to do so at first, but then he finally gave in and offered me his paw for a shake. "Such a handsome gentleman," I crooned, running my hand over his head. "You stay here and be a good lad, alright?"

Spoon finished with the top levels, while I sorted the bottom, and then I headed outside to give the all clear. Our rescuer made her way inside, followed closely by my dickhead patient, who angrily shoved away from Joe's attempt to help him on his way. I stayed outside the doorway, until Terry had made it inside with the Sarge, and gave the tree line a thorough going over, for all the good it did me, as Joe came to stand beside me.

"What happened back in that forest, Cooper?" he asked, mimicking my movements, which struck me as odd, given that he never would have done so before.

"I wish that I could tell you," I replied, "but the truth of the matter is that I really don't know what happened…but maybe this woman can give us a heads-up, right?"

The look that was on Joe's face, combined with the noise that he made said that he wasn't putting much stock in that theory, but what other choice did I have? I had to look for answers wherever I could find them, and at that moment the stranger who'd come to our rescue seemed like the best hope that we had…I just prayed that she could give us a solution that wouldn't end in further bloodshed.

Wells' POV

Cooper, God bless her, had taken me from Terry once she was back inside our makeshift home, and somehow, someway, I was able to be grateful that she had, in spite of my relentless and agonizing pain. For one thing, Cooper wasn't a nervous old woman, and Terry was. For another thing, Cooper's shoulder was much softer than Terry's was and she smelled a hell of a lot better than he did. And for a final thing, I liked her, a lot, and I found her presence reassuring…or, that is, it would have been, had my damned guts not been on fire.

"C'mon, Sarge," she said softly, guiding me toward a table that looked like it had been laid out in preparation of supper. "Let's get a chair underneath you, alright, and then I'll get a proper field dressing on that wound."

Oh, blimey…that sounded like something that was going to hurt like holy fucking hell. I knew that it had to be done, there was no getting around that, not if I wanted to have half a chance to live, but what if I screamed and cried and carried on like a gigantic tit baby? What if I lost my senses and cursed a blue streak at Cooper? What if I lost control of myself and showed her my pecker when the time wasn't right?

"Spoon, Terry keep an eye out front," she ordered, stepping into my boots without me having to ask her to do so. She leaned me forward, as gently as she could, so she could take off my pack, but that didn't stop me from letting loose a bellow just the same, did it?

"I know, and I'm sorry," she murmured, running the palm of her hand over the back of my neck. "I don't suppose that there's a phone, is there?" she asked, turning her attention to the woman who'd had a kind enough soul to remove us from certain death.

"What?" she asked, tearing her eyes, very reluctantly, I might add, away from Terry, who'd liberated a bubbling pot of something or the other off the top of the stove. "Oh, a telephone…no, I'm sorry, but there isn't one."

"Good news, lads," Terry called, placing the pot on the table. "It's still hot, and it smells like heaven."

"Hang on, now!" the woman cried, clearly distressed by the lack of manners that she was witnessing. "You can't just help yourself to whatever you want!"

The lads, it would seem, would beg to differ, because that was exactly what they did, taking bowls from the table and ladling them full of what looked to be homemade soup. I suppose that I ought to have chastised them, or Cooper ought to have done the same in my stead, but I was in too much agony, and she was too busy to give half a rat's fart what the lads were doing, provided that they didn't burn the house down around us.

"Oi, lady, I appreciate the fact that you pulled our fat out of the fire, but I'm exhausted, I'm fucking starving, and the two of those combined means that I have no choice but to help myself, alright?"

Joe could always be counted on to be the one who forgot his manners, couldn't he? Ah, well…at least he wasn't pissing in our collective ears about the damned footy anymore.

"Sorry, miss, but it's our training," Spoon explained, as I did my best not to snivel while Cooper went to work on me. "We never pass on an opportunity to eat, because we never know when one's going to come our way again."

I managed to stifle my need to cry out pretty well at first, but then she started to dump that damned sulfa powder all over my wound, and that proved to be more than I could take. I screamed and pounded the heels of my boots against the floor, in a desperate bid to escape the pain, but the agonizing heat grew and grew, no matter what I did.

"Not too loudly, please," Cooper murmured, resting her free hand on the back of my neck once more and gently massaging my muscles. "I know it hurts, but this will all go from bad to worse in the drop of the hat if we're too obvious with where we're hiding, won't it?"

I don't know how in hell she managed it, but her touch _was_ soothing to me. That didn't mean that I wasn't in so much pain that I could feel my mind slipping away from me, and it didn't stop the agony within me from rising, higher and higher, until I wanted to scream myself hoarse…but it did help, and I was grateful to her for that.

The corners of the room seemed to be going dark on me, a little hazy, and I was dimly aware of her tearing open packets of bandages to place on my ravaged gut. I thought that I saw the lads moving around the room, partaking of their own meal, and offering what was left over to the ill-tempered asshole and big-eyed savior, both of whom refused…and then everything came back into a roaring, excruciating reality where Cooper was pressing against those fucking bandages with what felt like every last bit of weight that she possessed.

"I'm almost done," she whispered, bending to touch her forehead to mine, seemingly without a care for who might be watching. "Just bear with me a little longer, alright, Sarge?"

I couldn't think straight enough to form an answer, and even if I had, I undoubtedly would have either screamed it or blubbered it, so it was best that I kept my mouth shut and listened to the lads instead, wasn't it? They seemed to be impressed with their supper, which they were fairly certain was pork, and I imagined that it did taste pretty good to them, in spite of the fact that it smelled like vomit to me.

"There has to be a phone close by," Cooper said, directing her observation at our rescuer. "How long of a drive would it be?"

"Too long," she replied, "fifty miles, give or take, and that would take an hour, at least, wouldn't it?"

"Fuck," Cooper muttered, slipping the tips of her fingers up my neck and into my hair. "What about the nearest town, or even a village?"

"That would be Fort William," the other woman said. "But that's four hours away, at least, back the same way that we just came. I don't think that your wounded will be able to make it that far…do you?"

"Fuck me sideways," Cooper hissed, the gentle circular caresses of her fingertips clashing wildly with the hostility of her tone. "We don't have any choice. The Sarge is in bad shape, to put things very mildly, and I won't stand back and watch him die. You seem to know these roads pretty well, from what I can tell. Would you be willing to take us to Fort William?"

"You mean, right this second?"

I heard Cooper sigh, though she was careful to keep the sound as quiet as she could. "Well, the way I see it, your friends didn't go out to look at the moon, which means that this house has been compromised, and I don't really relish the notion of waiting around to see how long 'til we're next….."

"Fine, we'll do it your way," the other woman said. "The sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned, so we'll head out just as soon as you guys can get yourselves together, alright?"

"Fuck me sideways, swinging in a hammock," Cooper growled. "Terry, you stay here with the Sarge. The rest of you hang back until we bring the car around, alright?"

Cooper headed out of my sight, going through the front door with Spoon at her back, and I was still coherent enough to wish that I was the one who was watching over her. I knew that she could take care of herself, and I knew that Spoonie would make sure that no harm came her way if she couldn't, but it ought to have been me out there…and then they came running back inside, cursing and shouting, and I knew that there was no one who could have backed her up, not when the odds were stacked against the whole damned lot of us.


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

I Hear the Voice of Rage and Ruin

Cooper's POV

I did not want to go outside to bring the car around. I wanted to stay inside, with solid walls all around me, where there weren't big hairy bastards lurking about, but what choice did I have? I'd patched the Sarge up as best as I could, with what I had to work with, but half-assed never made up for doing things right, and he needed proper medical attention. I wasn't as concerned for the health and wellbeing of my other patient. If I was to be completely honest, I'd have to admit that he could go straight to Hell, but I _was_ concerned for the Sarge, and I was willing to do damn near anything to help him stay alive.

It occurred to me that I was acting like a wimp. After all, it wasn't as if I would have to go out by myself. I had Spoon guarding my six, and I knew that he would be all the backup that I could need or want…but I couldn't get past the thought that I'd rather have the Sarge watching my back. I was a strong woman, and I could take care of myself, but that didn't keep me from wanting and needing the presence of the one man I trusted most, did it?

I was the first one out of the door, but Spoon followed so quickly that we may as well have been moving as one. We stood still for just a moment, back-to-back, and swept our gazes over what we could see of the vast property, and then we began to make our way to the Land Rover, moving very slowly and very cautiously the entire way. The light of my H & K proved sufficient enough to illuminate the condition of our escape vehicle, so there was no way that I could miss the state of things, but for some reason my brain refused to compute what my eyes were seeing, and I lit a magnesium flare for good measure.

The hood of the vehicle had been removed, ripped off, is more like it, and the engine had been torn to shreds. Any hope that we might have been able to make an escape were lost as I stared at the mess of what was left of the Land Rover's innards, and I might have indulged my need to curse long and loud and enthusiastically, had it not been for the fact that I'd just heard a growl that made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

There in the trees, not too far from the house, I spotted one of those ugly bastards that had sliced the Sarge. Spoon spied it as well, and whirled 'round, to train his weapon on the target, which seemed like the best path to take…until I saw something that made my heart thud painfully in my chest.

"Spoon?" I called, when I noticed, from the corner of my eye, that he'd seen the great ugly beasts as well, and had automatically raised his weapon in response. "Don't let them take hold of you. Whatever you do, don't stare back at them, okay?"

Oh, God…there was one on the other side of the Land Rover, running its hand over the window, scratching its claws over the glass, as its breath fogged the window.

"That's good advice, Cooper, but unfortunately I'm afraid that it's a little too late for me to _not_ stare at them, given that I've been doing so for the last half minute or so."

I couldn't help but look at them either, even as I warned Spoon away from doing so. That was why I continued to watch them for a few moments, as my stomach dropped, to land in my boots, then beneath the soles of my feet, while a horribly cold and slithering feeling ran along the length of my spine. That was why I allowed them to mesmerize me, to freeze me in place…but thankfully I came to my senses quickly enough.

"Back inside…now!" I shouted, throwing my flare onto the ground and letting loose with a volley that pierced the side of the jeep that was supposed to be our way out of this hell. I knew that the fuel tank had been punctured, I could smell the petrol in the air, and I knew that I needed to follow Spoon inside as quickly as I could. I made excellent time, but unfortunately there was a group gathered right in front of the bloody door…a group that included the Sarge, who gave me one hell of a turn when I saw him tumble to the floor.

"Oh, Terry, you fucking idiot!" I griped, moving toward the Sarge, who was sprawled out at the foot of the stairs, holding onto his stomach and groaning weakly. "I ask you to do one thing, just one _bloody_ thing, and somehow you manage to muck it up, don't you?"

I wasn't certain what his response would have been, or if he would have even bothered to offer one, but it didn't really matter anyway, because it was at that moment that the Land Rover exploded. I could imagine that it must have been an impressive sight, given the sound of it, but I was content to make-do with picturing it in my mind, because there was no way that I was going to open the front door again.

"Well, there goes that plan!" Spoon shouted, pissing in my ear as if I'd somehow conjured the hairy bastards with my mind, knowing that they'd tear up the jeep and leave us stranded.

"Hey!" our savior shouted, rushing into our group, to add her voice to the "let's blame Cooper" rally. "That was my car! You _morons_ blew up my fucking car!"

I took one deep breath, followed closely by another, and tried to calm down, and when that didn't work, I knelt on the ground and gathered the Sarge up into my arms. I pressed my nose and my mouth against the side of his head and breathed in his smell, taking solace in his scent and gathering my fleeting strength and scattering nerves as I held him as tightly as I dared.

"Damn, Cooper, you scared the shit out of me," the Sarge said quietly, and it was my turn to be scared when I saw how pale he was, and felt how much he was shaking. "Don't do that again, please…for me, okay?"

A surge of strength and the determination to chew on some ass rose up in me as I nodded my response. I was going to take care of business, and the first thing that needed to be done was to make sure that everyone got their shit together and quit bitching at me. I understood why Spoon was upset about the plan being ruined, hell, I was pretty damned pissed about that myself, but he needed to crawl down out of my rear and give me a break. Another person that needed to chill out was the lady who'd come to our rescue, and I was all set to tell her what I thought when all hell broke loose.

In hindsight I realized that the wisest thing that Spoon or I could have done was to lock the door as we made our way inside. But wasn't that the way that it always was? I think that there was a saying about hindsight being twenty-twenty, but that wasn't going to make much difference to us now, was it? It wasn't going to keep one of those ugly bastards from sticking its hairy arm inside the door, was it? It wasn't going to keep the poxy fucker from doing its damnedest to grab hold of the lads that rushed to close the door, was it? Long story short, hindsight wasn't going to do a single thing to help us, now that we were momentarily screwed, though I would definitely remember to lock the door next time around…provided that there _was_ a next time around.

Hindsight also did fuck all to warn me that the loveable pooch, Sam, was going to get all wound-up and do his damnedest to make a late-night snack out of the Sarge's guts. Here I'd been thinking that I'd seen the worst that could be seen when I'd come upon him lying on the ground with his insides on the outside, but that was nothing at all when compared with the hellishly surreal sight of the dog grabbing one end of his entrails and pulling on it with all of its might.

The woman who'd come to our rescue shouted at Sam to leave the Sarge be, but the pooch paid her no mind at all. He continued to pull on one end of the Sarge's intestine, while my wounded leader wrestled with the other, and I watched, frozen with horror, as each side struggled to be the victor in this macabre game of tug-of-war.

"Eh, sod off, you fucking mutt!" the Sarge said, kicking at Sam, who stubbornly dug his sharp teeth in even further. I didn't know whether I ought to attempt to intervene or not. I wasn't sure if I could help to make things any better, or if I'd simply make them worse. I suppose that I might have felt better about what to do if I knew what had set Sam off in the first place, but at that moment, with all the racket about, I couldn't settle my mind on the route that said that it was the chaos in the room, or whether it was the scent of blood that made the dog attack.

The boys at the door finally managed to fight the creature back outside, and Spoon was happy to loose a volley through the slot that opened to allow mail to come through. I couldn't say with any certainty whether or not he'd actually managed to wound the damned thing with one of the countless rounds that he'd fired, but the assault did make the beast back off, and Spoon hurried to lock and secure the door.

"For God's sake, Cooper," the Sarge said, almost cried, while somehow managing to retain a note of irritation in his tone. "Please get this damned dog off of me."

That decided it for me. I was going to have to intervene on his behalf; because there was no way that I could deny him anything when he said my name that way. I knelt down on the floor, and moved my hands toward Sam, fully prepared to do whatever was necessary to convince the pooch to turn loose of my man. The thought of harming the dog was upsetting to me, but if that was the only choice that I had, I was going to take it, and have a good, long cry later on, after I got everything set to right where the Sarge was concerned.

"Oh, God…please, Cooper!" he bellowed, as Sam continued to tug on his guts, growling as he did so. "Please, love, please stop him!"

I lunged for the dog, grabbing him around his chest with one hand, while the other took hold of his muzzle. It was all that I could do, to keep from gagging as I slid my fingers between his teeth in a desperate bid to loosen them off of the Sarge's intestine, but the way that my other patient was bitching in the background for us to "stifle that mutt" helped me immensely in that endeavor.

"Let go of him, boy," I said quietly, in as authoritative a tone as I could muster, given the way that my voice was trembling. "I don't want to hurt you, Sam, but I will if you won't let him go _right now_."

I could have cried with relief when Sam did exactly as I asked, but there wasn't time for that sort of hysterical bullshit at the moment. I was a tad bit too preoccupied by the fact that the world was going straight to Hell in a hand basket to break down and have a good boohoo.

I concentrated my attention on the Sarge and his ravaged guts instead, cradling the man I loved in my arms, and murmuring words that I hoped would comfort him. When I wasn't doing that, I was barking out orders to the lads in the undoubtedly futile hope of keeping some semblance of calm rationale in place. There was little doubt in my mind about where we were and where we were headed, but that didn't mean that we had to get hysterical about it, did it?

"Terry, keep an eye on the right flank," I shouted, forgetting myself and kissing the back of the Sarge's head when he moaned softly to protest the volume of my voice. "Make sure you keep cover on that window, alright?"

Terry was shaky at the best of times, and in moments like these, when tensions grew high, well; he had the tendency to turn into a full-blown nervous wreck. That was why his dinner wasn't sitting well, because his stomach was undoubtedly pitching all about, and that unrest was probably to blame for the fact that he tossed his cookies. It would have been bad enough if he'd heaved all over the floor, but the fact that he'd chosen to do so all over the back of my other patient's head made things much worse…hilariously and disgustingly so.

"Well, now, isn't that just bloody delightful?" the testy soldier muttered, wearing an expression that spoke volumes about his own desire to puke, to start a chain reaction even, if his pride would have faltered enough to allow him to do so. "You bungling _imbecile_!" he shouted, rising somewhat unsteadily to his feet and fixing Terry with a glare that said that he'd be happy to rip off his head and shove it, face first, up his ass, right before he grabbed a handful of the lad's jacket…..

"You want to have a go with someone, eh, you fucking twat?" Joe thundered, stepping between his friend and the surly son of a bitch who had every intention of giving Terry a beating. "If that's what you have in mind, you should give me a try first, right, you whingy little tosser?"

"Back off my lads, or I'll be sporting your balls as earmuffs, you fucking git," the Sarge said softly, but with enough force to let the prick with puke dripping off of his head know that he meant every word that he said. I assumed that was why said prick moved away from Joe, back toward the stairs, looking more than a little enraged as he asked for directions to the nearest lavatory.

"Upstairs," the woman who'd rescued us replied, "at the far end of the passage."

I felt a small smile curve my lips as I watched him stomp his way up the stairs, in the same way that a toddler in the midst of a tantrum might do. It was beyond ridiculous for him to be acting the way that he was when we were literally seated at the threshold of Hell, but I suppose that his type never stopped to survey the world around them until it inconvenienced them.

"Alright, Joe, Spoon, it looks like we're going to be here for a while," I called to the two lads who were still itching for a fight. "And I trust that you know what to do, right? I want you to ascertain that the perimeter is clear and make sure that we'll have a clear line of fire when we need it."

"On it, Coop," Joe said, rubbing Terry's hair as he moved to do as I'd asked, a statement that was echoed by Spoon, though it was plain as day that he would have preferred to wait for the wanker that was upstairs washing puke out of his hair to come back down and finish things.

"Terry, are you going to be okay?" I asked, noting the lingering queasiness that was on his face, which amplified the overall feeling that he was on the verge of coming apart at the seams.

His face crumpled a bit and he rushed to swipe at the tears that leaked out of his eyes before they streaked down his cheeks. "I could really go for a kebab," he replied, sniffling a bit and running his hands over his eyes for the second time.

"That sounds like a yes to me," I murmured, offering him a smile that I hoped was comforting in nature. "Now then, we're limited where ammo is concerned, so I want you to grab hold of every pot and pan that you can find and fill them with water, and then set them on the fire to boil, alright?"

He sniffled and let his bottom lip tremble for just a moment, then pulled himself together with a nod of his head and went to do as I'd asked. "Oh, Terry, be sure to set the kettle on as well, because we could all use a nice cup of tea."

The truth of the matter was that tea wasn't going to solve a damned thing at that moment, but it was a time-honored solution to each and every problem around these parts, wasn't it? I suppose that it didn't really make a hell of a lot of sense, but I was a sucker for tradition, and what was more traditional than a nice cup of tea?

A/N: Well, I am back to writing, which means that I will be making updates from time to time, but I cannot say with any certainty how often these postings will occur. My health problems are an ongoing issue, and there are times when I just don't feel like writing, but I will endeavor to update every week or possibly every two weeks.


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Don't Go Around Tonight

Wells' POV

The lads were all busy following Cooper's orders, and there was a large part of me that was proud of them for doing what she'd asked with no reservation, and then there was the tiny bit of me that was a little pissed. It wasn't that I wanted them to give her any guff, because that would have made me _very_ pissed. The thing that bothered me was the fact that I was suddenly unfit to lead my lads. I hated being laid up, hurting like hell and waiting to die. I was supposed to be their leader, damn it, yet I couldn't do fuck-all to take command of the operation. I was just the poor bastard who'd had his guts ripped out by a werewolf, that's all. I was just the sad sack of shit whose purpose in life was to act as a chew toy for the dog of the house. I may as well have had my balls ripped off of my body, for all of the good I was as a man…and for fuck's sake, why in hell was Cooper so damned determined to make my life harder than it already was?

She was trying to lift me up off of the floor for some reason that was beyond me, huffing and puffing with her efforts, all while the woman who'd rode to our rescue distracted her with one stupid question after another. I would have liked to have told both of them to shut their gobs and leave me to die in peace, but it seemed that the power of intelligible speech was a fleeting thing at that moment, given the senseless gurgling that was coming from me when I wasn't whimpering like a dog that had just been kicked.

"You came out here looking for them too, didn't you?" the woman asked. "What else could have brought you here?"

"I had no idea that such a thing existed outside of horror films until today," Cooper replied, sounding breathless in a way that might have been sexy, had the circumstances not been what they were. "And to be perfectly honest, ma'am, I don't really have time to think about what and why they are at this moment."

"Well, then, what are you doing here?" she asked, seemingly oblivious to the tone of voice that Cooper was employing, the one that said that she wasn't in the mood for stupid questions.

"We were on a routine training exercise," Cooper said, very quietly and very patiently, which was the way that most people spoke when they were trying very hard not to explode. "That was it, end of story, and suddenly we find ourselves smackdab in this nightmare."

I watched Cooper's hands as she uncapped her canteen, so small and so delicate. She moved one hand to the back of my head, to hold it steady, while the other raised the canteen to my lips to give me a drink of her water. I suppose that it was the blood loss that was making me so dizzy in the head, not to mention the shock of having my guts ripped out of my body, but damned if I didn't have the strongest urge to kiss her…and so I might have done, if she'd been just a little closer.

"So what you're saying is that this wasn't a rescue mission that you were sent on?" the woman asked quietly, in a tone that was mostly dejected in nature, though there was something beneath it that might have set my teeth on edge, had they not already been there.

"What's that?" Cooper asked, completely taken aback.

"Obviously it's not," the woman muttered, rising to her feet and shoving past Spoon who'd come to give a status report to Cooper.

"We've got that back door secure," he said, leaning against the wall for a momentary rest.

"How does it look outside?" Cooper asked, gently massaging my head as she recapped her canteen.

"They're still on the move," Spoon replied, "but they seem to be content to keep their distance…for now."

"Well, let's hope they've had enough for one night," Cooper said softly, words that were met with a scoffing sound from the one who'd rescued us…the one who'd hoped that we were there to rescue her.

"That's not bloody likely," she replied. "You've seen what they can do, so you must know that they are intelligent creatures. My guess is that they're behaving just as you would be, if you were them. They're obviously working together as a pack would; they're searching for a sign of any weakness and looking for an easy way in….."

"Look, lady, I'm not going to waste my time trying to understand these monsters," Cooper said sharply. "All that I know is that they're the enemy, and the sooner they're dead, the better it suits me, alright?"

"Yes, well, they're not like any enemy that you've ever come up against in the past," she answered, standing to look 'round the corner of the wall where she'd gone to sulk. "And if you're stupid enough to treat them as if they are, then _you'll_ be the ones who are dead…alright?"

I waited for Cooper to hand this lady her ass, or, at the very least, to dress her down in a way that would show her that it would be best for her own safety if she kept her mouth shut, but she didn't do either of those things. I suppose that it was for the best that she didn't lose her temper, for all our sakes, but I have to admit that I wouldn't have minded the show if she had.

"I know that they're not wolves exactly, "Cooper said. "So they're what, wolves plus….."

"Part wolf, part human," the woman replied. "Something that falls in-between the two, as impossible as that sounds….."

"Werewolves, huh?" Cooper said with a laugh. "Geez, lady, I might think that you were a nutter if I hadn't seen them with my own two eyes!"

"Yeah, well I thought that you might have been here for them, but obviously I was mistaken," she huffed, moving 'round the spot where we were crouched, to take a seat at the foot of the stairs. "So just go on doing what you're doing and cracking wise, but try not to be too much of a bitch, alright?"

I looked up at Cooper and tried to laugh, but the sound that escaped me fell a bit short. "I like your new friend, Cooper," I said weakly.

She looked past me, at her new "friend" and chuckled softly. "How're you feeling, Sarge?"

"A little gassy," I murmured, enjoying the feel of her hand on my face, almost as much as I liked the way that she laughed at my response. "Of course, there's also the fact that some of my entrails are on the outside of my body, that can't be overlooked, can it? Long story short, I feel bloody awful, love, but what else could be expected, right?"

Her eyes locked onto mine, and for one moment we shared a look that almost made the pain dim somewhat…and then that fuckwit Spoon let loose a volley that caught her attention and had her looking away from me to remind him to keep his bursts short and controlled in nature. It was probably for the best, because I was already on the verge of letting too much show, though I suppose that it didn't matter anyway, given what happened next.

"I'm going to need you to help me lift him, Miss," Cooper said, glancing 'round me once more, to converse with the woman who had been so helpful, when she wasn't bitching and nagging about this and that.

"The name's Megan," she replied, "and I can help you in more ways than that….."

She was on the verge of sharing some tidbit that she obviously considered to be of vital importance, but the fact that I let loose with a deafening bellow as Cooper began the act of hauling me up onto my feet made her lose her train of thought.

"I know that it hurts like hell, Sarge," Cooper murmured. "But you're leaking like a damned sieve, and I've got to fix it, alright?"

She didn't seem to expect an answer, which was good, because I couldn't give one. She directed her attention to the woman, Megan, once more and took on a tone that made it clear that she was the one in charge.

"I'm going to need some superglue and a bottle of whiskey," she ordered, "but first I need to get him upstairs, alright?"

"Yeah, sure," Megan replied, helping me to stand and giving me one of her shoulders, while Cooper held me up on the other side with hers. "And sorry about that whole 'bitch' thing. I've got one hell of a mean streak in me, but there was no reason for me to take it out on you."

"Yeah, well, that's the least of my worries at the moment," Cooper said, as we started to move up the stairs, leaving my gun behind on the floor, where it wouldn't do me a damned bit of good.

"Oi, Miss, hand me my gun, will you?" I asked, taking it in hand, to act as a crutch, and keep that Megan woman a step behind me. "Here we go, Cooper, up the wooden hill, right? Where is it that we're going, love?"

"Trust me, Sarge…you don't want to know," she replied, holding onto me a little tighter as we went, so much so that I forgot about what lay ahead of me, if only for that one moment…and then she tossed me off the edge, and into my own version of Hell on Earth.

Cooper's POV

Poor Sarge…he almost looked content, lying on the bed, holding his newly acquired bottle of whiskey, while he waited for me to begin the procedure that I had in mind. It made me sick to my stomach, to think of what I would have to put him through, but what choice did I have? The only other option that I had was to run the risk that he would die, and that wasn't going to happen on my watch. Therefore, I was simply going to have to gather all of my reserves of strength and perseverance and do my damnedest to make him whole again…or, that is, as whole as I could make him on my own.

I would have preferred to do what must be done with no one else in the room, save for me and him, but I knew that I would need a helping hand, and Megan had agreed to lend me one of hers. I just hoped that she would not say or do anything that might cause the Sarge anymore pain than what he was already dealing with, otherwise I might be left with no choice but to waste my time and energy kicking her ass.

"What are you going to do with the glue?" she asked, handing me the tube across the bed. At first her question seemed like the perfect example for something that she might say that would encourage me to plant my boot in her ass, but then I realized that there would be no way that I would be able to keep the Sarge in the dark about his treatment, so why bother?

"If you've had any experience with superglue in the past, you've probably noticed that the things that it sticks together the best are your fingers, right?" I asked, reaching for the whiskey bottle, to take it out of the Sarge's hands, only to have him engage me in a game of tug-of-war for the damned thing. "By God, that's enough of that bullshit…sir," I hissed, taking control of the bottle and handing it to Megan, to keep it out of reach of the Sarge. "Forget your Gran's best china cups. This stuff was created while Vietnam was raging, to aid in patching up soldiers who were all busted up."

Harry tried to sit up on the bed, but he didn't even make it halfway before he flopped back down, pressing the barrel of his pistol against the side of his head. It was a gesture that had Megan giving him a startled look, but I knew that he wasn't the suicide type. I knew that he was just in a hell of a lot of pain and he wanted it to go away as quickly as possible, and that was a situation that was bound to put anyone on edge, wasn't it?

"How are you holding up, Sarge?" I asked, slipping my hands into a pair of rubber gloves.

"Oh…well…I'm fucking brilliant, Cooper," he murmured, holding his pistol off to the side and turning it this way and that, so that the light in the room gleamed along the barrel. "Just peachy fucking keen, isn't that right, darling?"

He seemed to be on the verge of laughing, a sound that would have undoubtedly been a little maniacal in nature, given that he seemed to be on the fast-track to losing his mind altogether, but that was before I started to take his pistol away from him. It was at that moment that he became downright belligerent in nature, so much so that I had to wrestle the damned thing away from him, marveling the whole while that I managed to do so without shooting either one of us.

"Give it to me," I ordered, feeling very much like an adult who was doing their best to wrest a bit of candy away from a sticky-fingered toddler. "Damn it all, Sarge, give me that fucking gun _right now_!"

I handed the pistol to Megan, who placed it on the bedside table. Harry pouted, he actually _pouted_, for all of two seconds, and then, quick as a shot, he reached out and grabbed hold of the bottle of whiskey and raised it to his lips, gulping the stuff down, as if his life depended on him doing so.

"Should you really let him have so much whiskey, after you gave him all those painkillers?" Megan asked, as if I was the one who'd handed the bottle to the Sarge with the order that he chugalug it as quickly as possible. I might have been tempted to say something that would undoubtedly come off as being sarcastic in nature…hell, there was no might to it…but thankfully she reached out and took the bottle away from him before I could say a word.

"I think that he's done plenty to deserve a drink," I replied, completely unsurprised by the fact that I hadn't been able to keep my mouth shut for more than ten seconds.

"Eh…is it your birthday, Cooper?" Harry asked, lazing his head back on his pillow to give me one of those smiles that seemed to reach out and touch me right between my legs.

"No, it's not, Sarge," I answered, thankful for all of the blood and guts, which would serve to keep my mind on the task at hand.

"Well, then, it must be my birthday then, right?" he shouted, nervously eyeing the white gloves that I'd placed on my hands. "Because it looks like it's time for a party, eh, Cooper?"

"Sorry, Sarge, but you're wrong on both counts," I replied, slowly moving closer to him, holding the tube of superglue at the ready. "But I promise that you will thank us for doing this when you wake up in the morning, alright?"

"Too right, Cooper," he said, pointing a finger at me as he spoke in a voice that was slurred, though not enough to ease my mind about the coming "operation". "And I believe that I'll go ahead and give my thanks to you right now, because you saved my life," he continued, getting a wee bit teary-eyed on me as he reached up and grabbed my sleeve, using his hold to pull me closer to the bed. "You got me out, didn't you, love?"

It would have been one hell of a temptation, to fall into bed with him, had he not been in the condition that he was in, but I had to keep that to myself, didn't I? "Oh, come on now, Sarge," I said, trying to laugh and failing miserably. "You would have done the same for me….."

"Oh, really?" he asked, his voice rising as the emotion in his voice grew stronger. "Well, Cooper, let me tell you something, 'cause if I'd done the same as you, Bruce would still be alive, wouldn't he? I would have saved him, right, if I'd been the same as you, so clearly I'm _not_, am I?"

I hoped that he would be distracted enough, that he would be too focused on his regret to notice that Megan and I had begun our quest to mend him, but unfortunately for me he was not that far gone. His eyes flew to my face as I pulled back his bandage and lowered the tube of glue to his stomach, and he let loose a shout that was filled with both pain and disgust as I began the horrific process of what had to be done.

His shouts of agony, mixed with his pleas for mercy, filled the room and made me bite down on my bottom lip as hard as I could bear. I concentrated my gaze on his wound and repeated the pattern in my head, _glue, tuck, fold_, over and over again, in a desperate bid to keep myself from crying. I wanted to assure him that everything was going to be alright, I wanted to tell him that I knew how badly it hurt…but that was a lie, wasn't it, because I _didn't_ know, did I?

"Oh, Jesus," he whispered, reaching up, to wrap his hands around the bedposts. "Oh, God, Cooper, please…_please_ don't….."

Those words and the voice that they were spoken in damn near undid me in that moment, but I knew that I couldn't give in. Perhaps if I hadn't admired him so much, or if he hadn't been one of us…maybe I could have done so if I hadn't loved him so much, but I _did_ admire him, he _was_ one of us, and God knows that I loved him more than life itself, therefore I had no choice but to continue.

Thankfully, the Sarge moved from what was sad and heartrending to what was oddly amusing rather quickly, saving me from my impulse, once more, to break down and cry. He moved his eyes away from my face and down his body, landing on the mess that was still bulging out of his stomach, a sight which made him recoil in disgust.

"Son of a fucking bitch," he moaned. "I've got sausages hanging out of my gut, Cooper…and they're supposed to be inside of me, aren't they? This whole damned mission's gone balls-up, hasn't it?"

"Hush, Sarge," I murmured, "there's nothing to be gained from getting so worked up."

I glanced up at him and was startled by the way that he was looking at me, in that moment when my eyes had been transfixed on the task at hand. At any other time he undoubtedly would have been able to mask his emotions, but the pain that was tormenting him occupied him too thoroughly to allow for any sort of concealment on his part.

"Let me tell you something, miss," he said, clumsily turning his head, to concentrate all of his attention on Megan. "This beautiful girl is my best lad, right? She watches my back, she covers my ass…she's the best friend I've ever had. Now don't get me wrong, all of my lads are the salt of the earth, and there's no one else that I'd rather have on my team, but Cooper's got them all beat. God help me, I love her….."

My head lifted so quickly that I would have sworn I heard the bones in my neck crack, and my eyes fastened onto his. "I love you Cooper…I don't mean to, but I do…I'm your fireball and you're my starry eyes, aren't you, sweet girl?"

Oh, Lord, talk about perfect timing. Here were the words that I'd longed for, that I'd dreamed of, and they were probably nothing more than the drunken, pain ridden ramblings of a man who was enduring the horror of having his stomach glued over his exposed entrails. In the morning he would tell me that it had all been a mistake, provided that he survived the night, and I would be left with a broken heart…damn, it really sucked to be me, didn't it?

"Would you like for me to leave the two of you alone?" Megan asked with a smirk, a _knowing_ smirk, damned bitch that she was.

I refused to answer her, and somehow I also managed to resist the urge to glue her lips together as well. I chose, instead, to return to the unpleasant task of repairing Harry's stomach instead, an action which sent my patient squirming on the bed, desperately grabbing at the bedposts, as he cursed me, my mother, my father, and all of our relations, back to the dawn of time.

I would have preferred that he kept his hands wrapped 'round the bedposts, because he didn't fight so much when he had a hold on them, but he wasn't content with fighting an inanimate object, was he? That was why he tried to grab hold of my hands, and I finally surrendered the tube of glue to Megan, so that she could apply the adhesive while I did my damnedest to hold him down with one hand and bond his wound with the other.

"I don't think that I can take much more of this!" he shouted, tearing at the blankets on the bed. "It's really starting to hurt, Cooper! It feels like my fucking guts are on fire, and I don't want to do this anymore….!"

"I know, Sarge….."

"You don't know a goddamned thing!" he bellowed, reaching out to smack my shoulders, sending me tumbling away from him. "Damn it, Cooper, I'm sorry, love…aw, shit, Cooper, fight back! Hit me, will you? Knock me out, so I won't have to do this anymore!"

I didn't want to hit him. Sure, he'd pissed me off, shoving me the way he had, but I still didn't want to wallop him one. That being said, he was going to fight me tooth and nail the whole way if I didn't knock him out, and there was no way that Megan and I could patch him up if he kept carrying on the way that he was. There was definitely a choice that had to be made, one way or the other, and that was why I let him have it…but with my left instead of my right, to ensure that I wouldn't hurt him too much.

My fist connected with his jaw and knocked him back against the pillows…for about half a second, before he popped up again, like an ill-tempered jack-in-the-box. "Bollocks, Cooper!" he shouted. "You hit like you're sporting a pussy, for chrissakes! Try landing a punch like you've got a set of knackers, alright?"

Alright, that did it. I leaned in close to him, so that my face was right next to his, so that my lips were damn near touching his. "That's an excellent suggestion, but wouldn't that make things just a little awkward for you, if I were to grow a pair, that is, given that you _love_ me…sir?"

My lips did brush against his a couple of times as I spoke to him, and I would have sworn that I heard him groan in response…and then he did moan, very briefly, as I gave him the full force of my right, after which he bounced off of the pillows and slept like a baby, leaving Megan and I to finish our work in peace.

A/N: I would like to offer a word of thanks to IreneSelina for leading me to a video on YouTube of Mr. Pertwee performing the tune "Fireball XL-5" from the film _Love, Honor & Obey_. The movie has quickly become a favorite of mine, and I think that Sean does a fine job of carrying a tune, as well as exercising his comedic chops. Long story short, the lyrics of the song inspired me to have Sgt. Wells refer to himself as a "fireball" and to Cooper as his "starry eyes", just in case you were wondering where that bit of drunken, pain addled rambling came from.


End file.
